Prediction of the Critical Heat Flux in Subcooled Flow Boiling in Round Tube Using an Improved Mechanistic Model

Among the existing CHF models, the bubble crowding model and the liquid sublayer dryout model have been well accepted for subcooled flow boiling. But both of the two models couldn’t give explanation about some details in the boiling crisis phenomenon according to photographic result. The aim of the present paper is to provide an improved synthesized model containing the characteristic of the above two models and then to give a comprehensive explanation about CHF. In the present model, the conservation equations of mass and energy are solved to derive the CHF formula. The length and velocity of the vapor blanket and the thickness of the liquid sublayer are needed. The quality and void fraction in bubble region and the core region are calculated by a homogeneous assumption. The vapor blanket length is thought to be equal to the Helmholtz wavelength and it is obtained from several parameters in the bubble region. The velocity of the vapor blanket is connected to the flow velocity of the bubble layer. The thickness of the sublayer is determined by a force balance on the vapor blanket, which is also related to the condition of the bubble region. About 1100 experimental points have been selected to verify the proposed model. Comparison between the predictions by the proposed model and the experimental result shows a good agreement that more than 90% of these data are predicted within ±20%.