Effect of orientation on critical heat flux in a 3-rod bundle cooled by Freon-12

Critical heat flux measurements have been made in a segmented 3-rod test section cooled by Freon-12. Three test section orientations were used: vertical, inclined at 11 deg to the vertical, and horizontal. It was found that at flows of less than 2.5 Mg.m-2.s-1 the transverse gravity force on the inclined and horizontal orientations reduced the magnitude of the critical heat flux and also changed the location of initial dryout when compared to the vertical data. To account for the effect of orientation during correlation of the data, the Reynolds number was modified to include a transverse gravity term. The minimum standard deviation for the data from the three orientations combined was 3.4 percent and less than 3.7 percent for the three orientations separately. (author)