Experimental Study on the Gas Lift Pump in Lead-Bismuth Eutectic

Abstract

Recently, the utilization of the lift pump is examined in a small reactor of the lead-bismuth eutectic cooling. Then, the experiments concerning about void behavior and performance of the lift pump in three kinds of risers (1124mm in height and inside diameters φ69.3mm, φ106.3mm, φ155.2mm) were performed by using lead bismuth eutectic. The main results are as follows : (1) The local void fraction varies in horizontal plane in case of the big diameter riser. (2) The lead-bismuth circulating flow rate evaluated by a present design method becomes lower than that of experiments in case of medium and small diameter risers. This design method can be used as an outline evaluating function for these cases, considering the evaluation accuracy of the pressure loss of the test section in the calculation. (3) In the big diameter riser, the present design method may excessively evaluate the lead-bismuth circulating flow rate. It though that the circulation head will not occur in the experiments such as a results of the present design method because the void rises biasing in horizontal plane in case of big diameter riser though the present method is one dimensional model.