Transient pool boiling heat transfer due to increasing heat inputs in subcooled water at high pressures

Understanding of transient boiling phenomenon caused by increasing heat inputs in subcooled water at high pressures is necessary to predict correctly a severe accident due to a power burst in a water-cooled nuclear reactor. Transient maximum heat fluxes, qmax, on a 1.2 mm diameter horizontal cylinder in a pool of saturated and subcooled water for exponential heat inputs, qoet/T, with periods, τ, ranging from about 2 ms to 20 s at pressures from atmospheric up to 2063 kPa for water subcoolings from 0 to about 80 K were measured to obtain the extended data base to investigate the effect of high subcoolings on steady-state and transient maximum heat fluxes, qmax. Two main mechanisms of qmax exist depending on the exponential periods at low subcoolings. One is due to the time lag of the hydrodynamic instability which starts at steady-state maximum heat flux on fully developed nucleate boiling (FDNB), and the other is due to the heterogenous spontaneous nucleations (HSN) in flooded cavities which coexist with vapor bubbles growing up from active cavities. The shortest period corresponding to the maximum qmax for long period range belonging to the former mechanism becomes longer and the qmaxmechanism for long period range shifts to that due the HSN on FDNB with the increase of subcooling and pressure. The longest period corresponding to the minimum qmax for the short period range belonging to the latter mechanism becomes shorter with the increase in saturated pressure. On the contrary, the longest period becomes longer with the increase in subcooling at high pressures. Correlations for steady-state and transient maximum heat fluxes were presented for a wide range of pressure and subcooling