Application of Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov method in implicitly solving two-fluid six-equation two-phase flow problems: Implementation, validation and benchmark

Highlights: • High-order spatial and fully implicit temporal numerical schemes in solving two-phase six-equation model. • Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov method was used to solve discretized nonlinear equations. • Realistic flow regimes and closure correlations were used. • Extensive code validation using experimental data, and benchmark with RELAP5-3D. - Abstract: This work represents a first-of-its-kind successful application to employ advanced numerical methods in solving realistic two-phase flow problems with two-fluid six-equation two-phase flow model. These advanced numerical methods include high-resolution spatial discretization scheme with staggered grids (high-order) fully implicit time integration schemes, and Jacobian-free Newton–Krylov (JFNK) method as the nonlinear solver. The computer code developed in this work has been extensively validated with existing experimental flow boiling data in vertical pipes and rod bundles, which cover wide ranges of experimental conditions, such as pressure, inlet mass flux, wall heat flux and exit void fraction. Additional code-to-code benchmark with the RELAP5-3D code further verifies the correct code implementation. The combined methods employed in this work exhibit strong robustness in solving two-phase flow problems even when phase appearance (boiling) and realistic discrete flow regimes are considered. Transitional flow regimes used in existing system analysis codes, normally introduced to overcome numerical difficulty, were completely removed in this work. This in turn provides the possibility to utilize more sophisticated flow regime maps in the future to further improve simulation accuracy.