Forced Convective Boiling of Water inside Helically Coiled Tube

(Characteristics of Oscillation of Dryout Point)

Abstract

The helically coiled tube of heat exchanger is used for the evaporator of prototype fast breeder reactor “Monju”. This paper aims at the grasp of two-phase flow phenomena of forced convective boiling of water inside helical coiled tube, especially focusing on oscillation phenomena of dryout point. A glass-made helically coiled tube was used to observe the inside water boiling behavior flowing upward, which was heated by high temperature oil outside the tube. This oil was also circulated through a glass made tank to provide the heat source for water evaporation. The criterion for oscillation of dryout point was found to be a function of inlet liquid velocity and hot oil temperature. The observation results suggest the mechanism of dryout point oscillation mainly consists of intensive nucleate boiling near the dryout point and evaporation of thin liquid film flowing along the helical tube. In addition, the oscillation characteristics were experimentally confirmed. As inlet liquid velocity increases, oscillation amplitude also increases but oscillation cycle does not change so much. As hot oil temperature increases, oscillation amplitude and cycle gradually decreases.