On the frontier of boiling curve and beyond design of its origin

An advanced approach of Extended Design of the Boiling Curve beyond its origin is proposed. It is developed from the fact that both CHF (Critical Heat Flux) and rewetting affect the Boiling Curve on the heating surface through two simultaneous processes taking place on both sides of the heating surface. The first is two-phase flow thermal-hydraulics with resultant heat transferred from the heating surface to the coolant. The second one is the heat conduction through material itself, allied with the balance of generated and accumulated energy. Both of these processes are triggered by the change in HTC (Heat Transfer Coefficient) on the heating surface, which accordingly influences the Boiling Curve. Depending on direction of the Transition - from nucleate to film boiling or vice versa - these processes act differently and direct the Boiling Curve to diverse paths. The proposed physically based concept recognises this fact and introduces HTC as the triggering parameter with instant effect. It is implemented in the subchannel code COBRA 3-CP providing stable rewetting which has been deficient in COBRA since its origin. Results of validation and obtained agreements with transient measured data prove legality of the advanced concept of Boiling Curve. This approach is being used for transient analyses of PWR (Pressurised Water Reactor) gaining benefits from properly predicting the rewetting. The method is well-qualified to be applied also in other thermal-hydraulic codes like COBRA/TRAC, COBRA-TF, TRAC and/or RELAP, where the classical steady-state and poolboiling approach has been originally implemented. (author)