BWR steam separator swirler optimization

Book · Mon Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:248184

Jensen, D W; Fitzsimmons, G W ^[1]; Carter, T F; Peterson, P F ^[2]

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1. General Electric Nuclear Energy, San Jose, CA (United States)
2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering

The initial phase of a steam separator swirler optimization project has been completed. A half-scale cast acrylic steam separator and four different swirlers were designed and constructed. The four swirlers were fabricated by stereolithography techniques to reduce the time and expense of fabrication using traditional manufacturing methods. This test apparatus was used to experimentally measure the pressure drop across the swirlers utilizing a two-phase mixture of air and water. Two of the swirlers were designed to reduce pressure losses, one longer to reduce secondary flows and flow separation, and the other with extra vanes to reduce secondary flows. A third swirler with a low vane exit angle was used to determine the effect of swirl energy on pressure drop, and the fourth is a reference swirler developed in the 1960`s, was used as a benchmark. An experimental method was developed and tested to provide correlations for measuring the pressure drop. Preliminary results suggest that the longer swirler has a lower pressure drop than the low vane exit angle swirler, and a lower pressure drop than the extra vane swirler. Results are not available for the benchmark swirler because the vanes were damaged during shakedown testing.

• OSTI ID: 248184
• Report Number(s): CONF-960306--; ISBN 0-7918-1226-X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BWR TYPE REACTORS
DATA ANALYSIS
DESIGN
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
SCALING LAWS
STEAM SEPARATORS
TEST FACILITIES
TWO-PHASE FLOW
VORTEX FLOW