On the Predictions of Critical Heat Flux in Rod Bundles at Low Flow and Low Pressure Conditions

Abstract

Abstract At low flow and low pressure conditions, critical heat flux (CHF) data for rod bundle geometry are very limited, and applicable design correlations are almost nonexistent. This paper investigates the applicability of recent CHF correlations developed for uniformly heated vertical annuli (for water mass flux ≤250 kg/m2 s, and pressure of 0.118 MPa) to nonuniformly heated rod bundles. Results show that annuli correlations could be used to predict the CHF occurring at the same flow-regime transition in uniformly heated rod bundles. Also, the results demonstrate that the global conditions hypothesis (GCH), in conjunction with the annuli CHF correlations, may be used to predict CHF in nonuniformly heated rod bundles at low flow and low pressure conditions.