SCADOP: Phenomenological modeling of dryout in nuclear fuel rod bundles

Highlights: • Phenomenological model for annular flow dryout is presented. • The model evaluates initial entrained fraction using a new methodology. • The history effect in annular flow is predicted and validated. • Rod bundle dryout is predicted using subchannel methodology. • Model is validated against experimental dryout data in tubes and rod bundles. - Abstract: Analysis and prediction of dryout is of important consequence to safety of nuclear fuel clusters of boiling water type of reactors. Traditionally, experimental correlations are used for dryout predictions. Since these correlations are based on operating parameters and do not aim to model the underlying phenomena, there has been a proliferation of the correlations, each catering to some specific bundle geometry under a specific set of operating conditions. Moreover, such experiments are extremely costly. In general, changes in tested bundle geometry for improvement in thermal-hydraulic performance would require re-experimentation. Understanding and modeling the basic processes leading to dryout in flow boiling thus has great incentive. Such a model has the ability to predict dryout in any rod bundle geometry, unlike the operating parameter based correlation approach. Thus more informed experiments can be carried out. A good model can, reduce the number of experiments required during the iterations in bundle design. In this paper, a phenomenological model as indicated above is presented. The model incorporates a new methodology to estimate the Initial Entrained Fraction (IEF), i.e., entrained fraction at the onset of annular flow. The incorporation of this new methodology is important since IEF is often assumed ad-hoc and sometimes also used as a parameter to tune the model predictions to experimental data. It is highlighted that IEF may be low under certain conditions against the general perception of a high IEF due to influence of churn flow. It is shown that the same phenomenological model is applicable to tubes as well as rod bundles. For application to rod bundles, the flow field was calculated using subchannel methodology. The model developed has been validated against experimental data in tubes and rod bundles. In the process a computer code SCADOP has been developed for analysis of dryout in rod bundles.