Experiment and Numerical Simulation of Bubble Behaviors in Argon Gas Injection Into Lead-Bismuth Pool

In a lead-bismuth alloy (45%Pb-55%Bi) cooled direct contact boiling water fast reactor (PBWFR), steam can be produced by direct contact of feed water with primary Pb-Bi coolant in the upper core plenum, and Pb-Bi coolant can be circulated by buoyancy forces of steam bubbles. As a basic study to investigate the two-phase flow characteristics in the chimneys of PBWFR, a two-dimensional two-phase flow was simulated by injecting argon gas into Pb-Bi pool in a rectangular vessel (400 mm in length, 1500 mm in height, 50 mm in width), and bubble behaviors were investigated experimentally. Bubble sizes, bubble rising velocities and void fractions were measured using void probes. Argon gas was injected through five nozzles of 4 mm in diameter into Pb-Bi at two locations. The experimental conditions are the pressure of atmospheric pressure, Pb-Bi temperatures of 443 K, and the flow rate of injection Ar gas is 10, 20, and 30 NL/min. The measured bubble rising velocities were distributed in the range from 1 to 3 m/s. The average velocity was about 0.6 m/s. The measured bubble chord lengths were distributed from 1 mm up to 30 mm. The average chord length was about 7 mm. An analysis was performed by two-dimensional and two-fluid model. The experimental results were compared with the analytical results to evaluate the validity of the analytical model. Although large diameter bubbles were observed in the experiment, the drag force model for spherical bubbles performed better for simulation of the experimental result because of high surface tension force of Pb-Bi. (authors)