BURNOUT HEAT FLUXES FOR LOW-PRESSURE WATER IN NATURAL CIRCULATION

Technical Report · Tue Dec 20 04:00:00 EST 1960

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/4077756· OSTI ID:4077756

Gambill, W R; Bundy, R D

Twenty-nine experimental determinations of burn-out heat flux were made with water flowing by natural circulaion through electrically heated vertical tubes with and without internal twisted tapes and through rectangular cross sections of three aspect ratios. Heated lengths varied from 10 to 33 in., system pressure at the testsection flow exit from 14.7 to 26.3 psia, inlet subcooling from 36 to 170 deg F, and burn-out heat flux from 13,000 to 218,500 Btu/hr/sq ft. Tests were made with both unrestricted and restricted return flow paths. Three correlations were developed for predicting natural-circulation burn-out heat fluxes for such conditions. Two are useful for rapid estimation but the third involves a more fundamental assessment of the coolant mass velocity at burn-out by a graphical matching of the heat flux that a given flow rate can sustain to the heat flux that will produce that flow rate. For all the data, this approach gave average and maximum deviations of 15 and 38%, respectively. It was found that use of a slip ratio of unity is adequate for burnout prediction, and the reasons for this are discussed in detail. The small burn-out penalty incurred by a substantial restriction of return flow path, experimentally observed, is in complete accord with the theoretical model. (auth)

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., Tenn.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• NSA Number: NSA-15-013056
• OSTI ID: 4077756
• Report Number(s): ORNL-3026
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

BURNOUT
COOLANTS
COOLING
DIAGRAMS
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRICITY
ENGINEERING AND EQUIPMENT
FLUID FLOW
HEAT TRANSFER
HEATING
LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
LIQUIDS
MASS
MATHEMATICS
PIPES
PRESSURE
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
SLIP VELOCITY
STANDARDS
SUBCOOLING
TESTING
TUBES
VAPORS
VELOCITY
WATER