Investigation of Transport Phenomena in a Vapour Film Formed in Contact Between Hot Metallic Sphere and Water

Abstract

AbstractContact between hot objects and liquids occurs in many industries, such as nuclear reactors, metal casting industries and paper production. In such cases growth of vapour film leads to steam explosion that may cause human and financial damages. It is obvious that possibility of these phenomena can be judged by comparing vapour film radius growth and pressure inside vapour film. In this paper vapour film growth and pressure inside the vapour film formed, on hot sphere interaction with water, are investigated. The numerical simulation of problem is obtained and then validated using experimental test and other available results. The effects of the variations of different parameters such as hot sphere diameter, temperature, immersion depth into water and bulk water temperature are investigated on the vapour film radius, vapour pressure inside vapour film and the saturation temperature of phase interface surface. Finally, the overall results show that the effect of hot sphere interaction with water would be the same pressure inside vapour film suddenly increases up to 5 times more than initial pressure which would lead to hazard and put the safety of the system at risk.