Prandtl Number Dependent Natural Convection with Internal Heat Sources

Natural convection plays an important role in determining the thermal load from debris accumulated in the reactor vessel lower head during a severe accident. Recently, attention is being paid to the feasibility of external vessel flooding as a severe accident management strategy and to the phenomena affecting the success path for retaining the molten core material inside the vessel. The heat transfer inside the molten core material can be characterized by the strong buoyancy-induced flows resulting from internal heating due to decay of fission products. The thermo-fluid dynamic characteristics of such flow depend strongly on the thermal boundary conditions. The spatial and temporal variation of heat flux on the pool wall boundaries and the pool superheat are mainly characterized by the natural convection flow inside the molten pool. In general, the natural convection heat transfer phenomena involving the internal heat generation are represented by the modified Rayleigh number (Ra'), which quantifies the internal heat source and hence the strength of the buoyancy force. In this study, tests were conducted in a rectangular section 250 mm high, 500 mm long and 160 mm wide. Twenty-four T-type thermocouples were installed in the test section to measure temperatures. Four T-type thermocouples were used to measure the boundary temperatures. The thermocouples were placed in designated locations after calibration. A direct heating method was adopted in this test to simulate the uniform heat generation. The experiments covered a range of Ra' between 1.5x106 and 7.42x1015 and the Prandtl number (Pr) between 0.7 and 6.5. Tests were conducted with water and air as simulant. The upper and lower boundary conditions were maintained uniform. The results demonstrated feasibility of the direct heating method to simulate uniform volumetric heat generation. Particular attentions were paid to the effect of Pr on natural convection heat transfer within the rectangular pool.