Gi Cheol Lee

Minimum film-boiling quench temperature increase by CuO porous-microstructure coating

Increase in the minimum film-boiling quench temperature, TMFB, is achieved with microstructured CuO particles, and attributed to local cooling (fin effect) by the microstructure causing liquid–solid contact. A periodic structure is obtained using electrochemical deposition of 1 μm diameter particles on brass sphere diameter 15 mm forming unit-cell porous cones of average height L = 100 μm and base diameter D = 20 μm. Fin analysis predicts the cone tip cooling to the homogeneous nucleation temperature of water (∼330 °C), while the base temperature is at 600 °C. This causes liquid–solid contact during quenching, and analysis suggests the fin effective thermal conductivity ⟨k⟩ and fin characteristic length L2/D are key to this liquid–solid contact that influences TMFB.

INVESTIGATION ON EFFECTS OF ENLARGED PIPE RUPTURE SIZE AND AIR PENETRATION TIMING IN REAL-SCALE EXPERIMENT OF SIPHON BREAKER

To ensure the safety of research reactors, the water level must be maintained above the required height. When a pipe ruptures, the siphon phenomenon causes continuous loss of coolant until the hydraulic head is removed. To protect the reactor core from this kind of accident, a siphon breaker has been suggested as a passive safety device. This study mainly focused on two variables: the size of the pipe rupture and the timing of air entrainment. In this study, the size of the pipe rupture was increased to the guillotine break case. There was a region in which a larger pipe rupture did not need a larger siphon breaker, and the water flow rate was related to the size of the pipe rupture and affected the residual water quantity. The timing of air entrainment was predicted to influence residual water level. However, the residual water level was not affected by the timing of air entrainment. The experimental cases, which showed the characteristic of partical sweep-out mode in the separation of siphon breaking phenomenon [2], showed almost same trend of physical properties.