Pressure Drops and Model Modification for Two-Phase Flow in Porous Beds With Coarse Particles

Motivated by reducing the uncertainties in coolability analysis of a debris bed, this paper proposed a modified model for the pressure drops of two phase flow through packed beds with coarse particles based on the experimental studies. The experiments are carried out on the test facility of DEBECO-LT (DEbris BEd COolability-Low Temperature), which was designed to investigate single / two-phase flow in porous beds. The coarse particles are packed in the cylindrical test section with the inner diameter of 120 mm and the height of 600 mm. Through single-phase flow tests in homogeneous beds, the reliability of the whole experimental system is ensured. Then two-phase flow tests are performed to investigate the flow characteristics, to provide basic data for verifying and modifying the existing models. The results show that, the interfacial drag in beds with coarse particles will result in a decreasing tendency in the pressure drop curves along with the fluid velocity, and the the effect of interfacial drag should be considered in the debris coolability analysis models for beds with coarse particles. Compared with the existing models, the new model shows relatively satisfactory forecasting ability, and the predictions have favorable agreement with existing experimental data under various conditions. This modified model could be applied to calculate the pressure drops of two-phase flow in coarse-particle beds.