An Investigation of Flow, Heat Transfer Characteristic of Annular Flow and Critical Heat Flux in Vertical Upward Round Tube

The term annular flow is used to describe the configuration of vapor-liquid flow in which part of the liquid travels as a film on the wall and the rest is entrained as drops by the vapor core in the center of the channel. The objective of this paper is to develop a hydrodynamic model for vertical upward annular flow. A separated flow model is developed and the conservations of Mass, Momentum, Energy, entrainment rate correlation in wide range of conditions and interfacial frictional correlation are used to research the flow and heat transfer characteristic of annular flow. The liquid film thickness, liquid film mass flow rate, two-phase heat transfer coefficient pressure along axial position, local velocity profiles along radial position are predicted theoretically. The influence of the mass flux, heat flux on liquid film thickness, heat transfer coefficient etc. are investigated in detail. The critical heat flux are also predicted in vertical upward round tube according to the theory that the dryout in vertical annular flow emerges at the point where the film is depleted due to the integrating result of entrainment, deposition and evaporation. The influence of mass flux, inlet mass quality and tube diameter on critical heat flux is also predicted in this paper. Finally the predicted result of critical heat flux is compared with experimental data, and the theoretical CHF values are higher than that of experimental data, with error within 30%.