In relation to development of the flow regime criteria for rod bundles, this paper provides an experimental flow regime map and compares the experimental map with the existing flow regime transition criteria for vertical rod bundles so far. An experiment of vertical adiabatic air-water flow was conducted under an atmosphere pressure conditions. The experiment facility was composed of 5×5 rod arranged on a square pitch in a square shell with 9.5 mm outside diameter and 12.6 mm pitch. A total of 242 data sets were acquired consisting of superficial gas flow rates, 0.02–8.69 m/s, and superficial liquid flow rates, 0.02–2.13 m/s. A new flow regime map was obtained and the flow regime transition model for rod bundles was validated by the measured flow regime map. A fairly good agreement with some discrepancies has been obtained between the existing flow regime transition criteria and measured flow regime maps for rod bundles.

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