Evaluation of the Sensitivity of a Two-Phase Flow Model for the Steam Separators Analysis

Abstract

Reducing of the pressure losses of steam separator systems of boiling water reactor (BWR) plants is useful to reduce the required pump head and enhance core stability design margin. The need to reduce the pressure losses of steam separator systems is especially important in BWR plants that have high power density cores and natural circulation systems. The core flow rate of a BWR plant with a natural circulation system is affected by the pressure losses of steam separator systems. In BWR plants with high power density cores, the core stability design margin is affected by these pressure losses. Generally, reducing the pressure losses of the steam separator systems leads to increased carry-under and carryover. Reducing the pressure losses while keeping the characteristics of both carry-under and carryover is desired, so many studies have been done. The steam separator of a BWR plant consists of a standpipe section, a swirl vane section and three-barrel sections. Two-phase flow of steam and water enters the steam separator through the standpipe section and reaches the swirl vane section. In the swirl vane section, the two-phase flow is given centrifugal force and is basically separated into steam and water. Therefore investigating the two-phase flow characteristics of the swirl vane section is very important. After the swirl vane section, the two-phase flow enters the barrel sections. Each barrel has a pick-off ring. The water in the barrel section is mainly removed by these pick-off rings because the water mainly flows upward as a liquid film in the barrel section due to the centrifugal force given in the swirl vane section. We researched the effect of using the drag force model of the swirling two-phase flow in analyzing a steam separator and we found that the drag force model greatly affects the results of the analysis.