Naoki Horiguchi

Research and Development of Self-Priming Venturi Scrubber for Filter Venting: Preliminary Analysis and Observation of Hydraulic Behavior in Venturi Scrubber

As revealed by Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, countermeasures against severe accident in nuclear power plants are an urgent need. In particular, from the viewpoint of protecting containment and suppressing the diffusion of radioactive materials, it is important to develop the device which allows filtered venting of contaminated high pressure gas. In the filtered venting system that used in European reactors, so called Venturi scrubbers are used to realize filtered venting without any power supply. The Venturi scrubber operates without a power supply of high pressure gas filled into the containment. In this apparatus, scrubbing of contaminated gas is promoted by both gas releases through a submerged Venturi tube which is one of the major components of Venturi scrubber and liquid splay flow formed by liquid suction through a hole for suction provided at the throat part of the Venturi tube. This type of Venturi scrubbers is called self-priming ones. However, the mechanism of a self-priming Venturi scrubber including effects of gas flow rate and shape of Venturi tube is understood insufficiently in the previous studies.In this study, to provide knowledge about the detailed mechanism of filtering and evaluation method for operating condition of the filtered venting system with Venturi scrubber, both experimental and numerical research works have been performed. In this paper, as a previous step of designing and making a self-priming Venturi tube, hydraulic behavior in a rectangular Venturi tube is taken by high speed camera, by the air-water experiment under atmospheric condition to check the operation in a self-priming mode and the validity of the experimental method and the visualization technique. And numerical analysis of a circular Venturi tube is conducted as a preliminary analysis, by TPFIT (Two-Phase Flow simulation code with Interface Tracking) to predict its operation. As results, the Venturi scrubbers used in experiment and simulated in numerical analysis were operated in a self-priming mode. By observed results of the hydraulic behaviors in the Venturi tube, the validity of the experimental method and the visualization technique were confirmed. And it is expected that the simulated circular Venturi scrubber in this numerical simulation was operated in a self-priming mode in a real situation.Copyright

Relationship Between Flow Pattern and Pressure Distribution in Venturi Scrubber

As revealed by Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, countermeasures against severe accidents in nuclear power plants are an urgent need. In particular, from the viewpoint of protecting containment and suppressing diffusion of the radioactive materials, it is most important to install filtered venting devices to release high pressure contaminated gas to the atmosphere with elimination radioactive materials in the gas.A Multi Venturi Scrubber System (MVSS) is one of the filtered venting devices, and used in European reactors [1, 2]. One of the main components of the MVSS is a Venturi Scrubber (VS). It is considered that a dispersed or dispersed annular flow is formed in the VS by a self-priming phenomena. In the self-priming phenomena, the liquid was suctioned from a surrounding region of the VS to the inside of the VS. And a part of the radioactive materials are eliminated through the gas-liquid interface of the dispersed or annular dispersed flow. Therefore, to consider the MVSS operation characteristics, it is important whether to occur the self-priming or not and the liquid flow rate of the self-priming of the VS.The objective of this paper is to understand the self-priming phenomena of the VS for the filtered venting. And theoretical analysis and experiment were conducted. By comparing these results, we discussed about the mechanism of the self-priming phenomena. As results, the self-priming phenomena in the VS was confirmed and, at a high gas flow rate, the suspension of the self-priming is confirmed experimentally and theoretically.Copyright