Experimental study for high Reynolds’ gas-liquid two-phase flow through rod bundle using Wire Mesh Sensor (WMS)

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and design 2023-04, Vol.405, p.112224, Article 112224
• Main Authors: Al-Yahia, Omar S., Clifford, Ivor, Bissels, Wilhelm-Martin, Suckow, Detlef, Ferroukhi, Hakim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bubble parameters; Subchannel; Two-Phase Flow; Void fraction; Wire-mesh sensor
• ISSN: 0029-5493; 1872-759X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2023.112224

•Experimental study has been performed to investigate the bubble behavior through tube bundle with and without spacer grid.•Wire Mesh Sensor (WMSs) have been utilized to measure the void fraction distribution and bubble parameters.•At low liquid flow rates, the bubbles are located at the center of the subchannels, and they are pushed toward the stainless steel rod at intermediate flow rates.•At higher liquid flow rates, the bubbles agglomerate at the gaps between the subchannels.•Spacer grid has large influence on the bubble behavior through the subchannel flow. Gas-liquid two-phase flow is a very complex physical system. It is essential to study the physical interactions between gas and liquid phases, towards improving the modeling of the interfacial transport terms between the two phases. Higher resolution experimental data is essential for CFD quality closure model development. The two-phase flow behavior is highly influenced by flow conditions and the interaction between the bubbles of different sizes and different velocities. Currently, the prediction of bubble size distribution, bubble velocity and interfacial area concentration remain the most challenging tasks in analyzing the transport phenomena and simulating the turbulent bubble flows. Accordingly, several experiments have been conducted in tube bundles such as SUBFLOW at PSI. The SUBFLOW test facility is one of the very few facilities in the world that use Wire Mesh Sensors (WMS) to investigate the two-phase flow characteristics in tube bundles. In this work, we have reconstructed and recommissioned the SUBFLOW test facility, and utilize it to generate new data to extend the two-phase flow validation database, which includes void fraction, bubble distribution and bubble velocity measurement in a tube bundle. Separately, this paper also explains the WMS post processing techniques. Several WMS post-processing frameworks are available at PSI. The presented results show the variation between the different post-processing toolkits, as well as a comparison against previous SUBFLOW experimental data was conducted to verify the consistency of the recommissioning of SUBFLOW facility.