Development of a look-up table for film-boiling heat transfer covering wide range of flow conditions

An assessment of film-boiling prediction methods has shown that existing methods are applicable only to limited ranges of flow conditions. Most of them provide poor prediction accuracy when extrapolated to conditions beyond their data base. Some methods exhibit incorrect asymptotic and parametric trends and, hence, may result in erroneous predictions in extrapolation. The look-up table approach has been proposed for film-boiling analysis to improve the prediction accuracy and extend the range of application. Based on the same development methodology as the critical-heat-flux (CHF) look-up table, a look-up table for film boiling heat-transfer coefficients has been set up for upward flow of water inside tubes at discrete values of pressure, mass flux, thermodynamic quality and heat flux (pressure range of 0.1 to 20 MPa, mass-flux range of 0 to 7000 kg·m-2·s-l, heat-flux range of 50 to 3000 kW·m-2, and thermodynamic-quality range of -0.2 to 1.2). This paper describes the development process of the film-boiling look-up table and the preliminary assessment against the AECL film-boiling database. (author)