Fresh-salt water experimental studies for buoyant flow behaviour in large vertical and horizontal ceiling opening

An interesting transport phenomenon is observed through openings between two compartments such as those between containment areas in nuclear power systems, in other installations in event of fire, passive cooling of heated structures and in natural building ventilation. The objective of this project was to study such type of flow across an opening in horizontal and vertical partition in presence of buoyancy force. The applications of such studies are in the areas of containment thermal hydraulics, fire modelling in nuclear power plants and hydrogen transport in nuclear reactor containment. Fresh and salt water were used to obtain the density difference with a zero pressure difference across the opening. The flow visualization was done using shadow graph in a scaled setup of Perspex. The process was recorded using a standard video camcorder. Density distribution in the lower compartment was measured with conductivity probes. Similarity analysis was done to identify the non-dimensional parameters of importance. The salt water system was found suitable for this application. Bi-directional flow pattern was observed for both the cases. (author)