Off-take and slug transition at T-junction of vertical-up branch in the horizontal pipe

Abstract

The off-take and the slug transition on air-water interface are experimentally investigated at the T-junction of the horizontal pipe with a vertical upward branch to simulate the loss-of-residual-heat-removal during a mid-loop operation in the Korea standard nuclear power plant. Scaling analysis is performed to scale down the experimental facility to the reference nuclear power plant. Two different diameters of branch pipes are used to verify the scaling laws and their scale effects. Air is used as working gaseous fluid and no water flow exists. Off-take behavior on horizontal stratified and slug flows is visually observed in the horizontal pipe. The experimental data are divided into three categories; onset of liquid entrainment at T-junction, onset of slug transition in the horizontal pipe, and discharge quality in the branch pipe. It is found out that the scale effect of the branch diameter on the onset of liquid entrainment is small and the existing correlations for it are applicable. Also, the onset of slug transition shows a discrepancy with Taitel-Dukler's correlation and has a strong influence on the discharge quality. New correlations for discharge quality are developed considering the critical dependency of the onset of slugging.