2012 Volume 6 Issue 2 Pages 197-209
In a PWR plant, a steam-water two-phase flow may possibly exist in the pressurizer spray pipe under a normal operating condition since the flow rate of the spray water is not sufficient to fill the horizontal section of the pipe completely. Initiation of high cycle fatigue cracks is suspected to occur under such thermally stratified two phase flow conditions due to cyclic thermal stress fluctuations caused by oscillations of the water surface. Such oscillations cannot be detected by the measurement of temperature on outer surface of the pipe. In order to clarify the flow and thermal conditions in the pressurizer spray pipe and assess their impact on the pipe structure, an experiment was conducted for a steam-water flow at a low flow rate using a mock-up pressurizer spray pipe. The maximum temperature fluctuation of about 0.2 times of the steam-water temperature difference was observed at the inner wall around water surface in the test section. Visualization tests were conducted to investigate the temperature fluctuation phenomena. It was shown that the fluid temperature fluctuations were not caused by the waves on the water surface, but were caused by liquid temperature fluctuations in water layer below the interface. The influence of small amount of non-condensable gas dissolved in the reactor coolant on the liquid temperature fluctuation phenomena was investigated by injecting air into the experimental loop. The air injection attenuated the liquid temperature fluctuations in the water layer since the condensation was suppressed by the non- condensable gas. It is not expected that wall temperature fluctuation in the actual PWR plant may exceed the temperature equivalent to the fatigue limit stress amplitude when it is assumed to be proportional to the steam-water temperature difference.
