Experimental investigation of the natural convection heat removal capability of a vessel filled with porous media

Temperature distribution measurements in the mockup apparatus of reactor vessel were performed to determine the effective thermal conductivity of porous media with different geometry and to obtain the experimental data for the heat transfer processes by natural convection occurring in the air duct. The temperature distributions at four separated sections with different arrangements of porous media have different slopes according to the geometrical configuration. From the measured temperature distribution, effective thermal conductivity have been derived using the least square fitting method. The test at air duct was performed to the high heat removal at 3.4kW/m2 by the natural convection from the outer wall to the air. And also the temperature distributions in the air duct agree well with the 1/7th power-law turbulent temperature distribution. The obtained heat transfer data have been compared with the Shin's and Sieger's correlations. (author)