Two-phase mixture level swell and liquid entrainment/off-take in a vessel during rapid depressurization

Abstract

An experimental study has been performed to analyze the two-phase mixture level swell and the liquid entrainment/off-take through the break in a vessel, which are important phenomena to determine the bleed capacity of the Safety Depressurization System (SDS) of Korea Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR1400). Three separate experiments are performed in this study: (a) the depressurization and two-phase mixture level swell experiment; (b) the two-phase mixture level measurement experiment; (c) the liquid entrainment and off-take experiment. A series of experiments has been performed using a scaled pressurized vessel in various depressurization conditions to analyze the two-phase mixture level swell and the liquid entrainment/off-take phenomena from the two-phase mixture surface in the first experiment. The test parameters are the initial pressure (10 - 38.75bars), the initial water level (43.7% - 80.0% of full height), the orifice inner diameter (10mm, 17.5mm, and 20mm). The liquid off-take takes place in certain experimental conditions. The measured parameters in the present experiments are axial void fraction distributions, pressures, temperatures in the test vessel, and the mixture density and mass flowrate through the discharge pipe. An assessment of RELAP5/MOD3 code with the present experimental data has been performed. With appropriate nodalization and time step, RELAP5/MOD3 showed reasonable agreement with the present experimental data for the gradual depressurization without liquid off-take. In the case that the off-take takes place, however, RELAP5/MOD3 under-predicts the amount of liquid entrainment/off-take during depressurization. In the second experiment, an assessment of an ultrasonic sensor and a two-wire type capacitance probe for the two-phase mixture level measurement has been performed under the same experimental conditions to adopt an appropriate measurement method for the two-phase mixture level swell and to investigate pool void fraction by th...