Effects of Surface Tension on Two-Phase Void Drift Between Triangle Tight Lattice Subchannels

In this study, void drift phenomena, which are one of three components of the inter-subchannel fluid transfer, have been investigated experimentally and analytically. In the experiments, data on flow and void redistributions were obtained for hydraulically non-equilibrium flows in a multiple channel consisting of two subchannels simplifying a triangle tight lattice rod bundle. In order to know the effects of the reduced surface tension on the void drift, water and water with a surfactant were used as the test liquids. In addition, data on the void diffusion coefficient, D˜, needed in a void drift model, have been obtained from the redistribution data. In the analysis, the flow and the void redistributions were predicted by a subchannel analysis code based on a one-dimensional two-fluid model. From a comparison between the experiment and the code prediction, the present analysis code was found to be valid against the present data if newly developed constitutive equations of wall and interfacial friction were incorporated in the model to account for the reduced surface tension effects.