Experimental and Numerical Research on Steam Direct Contact Condensation Process in Automatic Depressurization System of AP1000

Abstract

In the third generation pressurized water reactor AP1000 plant, the Automatic Depressurization System (ADS) is one of the most important passive safety system. However, the steam Direct Contact Condensation (DCC) microscopic mechanisms are very complicated, which are not very clear yet. Moreover, the high-pressure and high-temperature experiment is very expensive to be conducted for many different test conditions. So in the present work, both the experimental and numerical methods are employed to investigate the steam DCC behavior. The steam DCC experimental bench has been built up, and the key parameters including the flow patterns and steam core temperature distributions are measured to provide validation data for the numerical results. In aspect of the numerical work, CFD simulation on the steam condensation is conducted. The heat and mass transfer process is simulated through the three-dimension commercial software FLUENT 16.0. Some of the key heat and mass transfer correlations are added by User Defined Function (UDF). The key parameters including the condensation steam fraction, temperature, and pressure, etc. are analyzed, which reflect the major heat transfer characteristics. According to the results, the expansion-compression-steam tail could be observed in both the numerical and experimental results. In essential, the steam fraction, temperature, and pressure distributions are determined by the equilibrium and transformation between the thermal dynamic energy and kinetic energy. The results provide working references for the practical ADS steam spraying condensation process in AP1000 reactor.