Study on DNB-Type Critical Heat Flux With Chopper-Cosine Axial Heat Flux Distributions

Departure from nucleate boiling (DNB) type critical heat flux (CHF) is one of most important thermal criteria for nuclear reactor design. Concerning on the typical chopper-cosine heat flux profile at reactor core, it is of great significance to predict the CHF under non-uniform heating conditions for reactor design and the performance promotion of reactor system. Some correction factors are proposed for the prediction of CHF with non-uniform axial power shapes. In this study, a mechanistic DNB-type CHF model has been developed on the basis of liquid sublayer dryout mechanism. The non-uniform axial heat flux is taken into account of upstream memory effect on boiling crisis in this model. The predictions of present model and Tong’s non-uniform heat flux shape factor method are compared with the experimental results in the vertical tube with chopper-cosine axial heat flux distributions. The comparison results show the present model has fairly good prediction capability for DNB-type CHF under non-uniform heating condition.