Abstract
Critical heat flux (CHF) and premature tube burnout are the common failure modes observed in steam water two-phase flows. Unlike the vertically upward two-phase flows, the vertically downward two-phase flows pose significant challenges including two-phase flow instabilities and premature tube burnout arising due to competing behavior between the buoyancy effects on vapor bubble and momentum and gravitational force acting on the liquid. Experimental investigations were conducted previously to understand the CHF at atmospheric pressures. There were very limited number of numerical analysis conducted in vertically downward flows using commercially available software and at such low-pressure conditions. In the current investigations, numerical simulations were carried with commercially available computational fluid dynamics software Fluent for vertically downward two-phase flows up to pressures of 5 bar. The magnitude of CHF from numerical investigations was compared with the experimental results conducted in house up to 5 bar and including the sub-cooling effects. The numerical results tend to agree with the experimental data at lower flow rates and at all pressures considered, but tend to deviate significantly at higher flow rates and at all pressures. Finally, A CHF correlation is proposed as a function of mass flux, inlet temperature and pressure. The proposed CHF correlations fits in with an average deviation of 16% and a standard deviation of 21%.