Abstract
The helium-air exchange flow may occur at the rupture accident of a standpipe in a high temperature engineering test reactor. A test vessel with three types of small opening is used for experiments. An estimation method of mass increment is applied to measure the exchange flow rate. Flow measurements are made with the single opening and partitioned, opening, for opening ratiosH 1/D 1 in the range 0.05 to 10, whereH 1 andD 1 are height and diameter of the opening, respectively. At lower opening ratios (H 1/D 1<0.75), the difference in the exchange flow rates between the opening systems is small. At higher opening ratios (H 1/D 1≥0.75), exchange flow rates of the partitioned opening system are higher than those of the single opening system because of separated (unidirectional) flows by partition. An effect of variation of diameters of the partitioned openings on the exchange flow rate is investigated. The exchange flow rate increases with the opening diameter. Finally, an experiment with two-opening is designed to investigate the effect of fluid interaction of the partitioned opening system. It is demonstrated that the exchange flow rate of the two-opening system is higher than that of the partitioned opening system because of the absence of the fluid interaction.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- D 1 :
-
Diameter of opening (m)
- D f :
-
Effective diameter of opening (m)
- F r :
-
Froude number
- g :
-
Aacceleration due to gravity (m/s2)
- H 1 :
-
Height of opening (m)
- m He :
-
Mass of helium (kg)
- mL :
-
Mass of gas mixture (kg)
- Δm :
-
Mass increment (kg)
- Q :
-
Volume exchange flow rate (m3/s)
- t :
-
Time (s)
- V :
-
Volume of test vessel (m3)
- δ:
-
Partition thickness (m)
- π:
-
Density (kg/m3)
- ρ m :
-
Mean density= (ρ H +ρ L )/2 (kg/m3)
- Δρ L :
-
Density increment (kg/m3)
- L :
-
Gas mixture
- t :
-
Time
- 0:
-
Initial condition
References
Brown, W. G. and Solvason, K. R., 1962a, “Natural convection through Rectangular Openings in Partitions-1,”Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 859–867.
Brown, W. G. and Solvason, K. R., 1962b, “Natural Convection Through Rectangular Openings in Partitions-2,”Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 869–878.
Epstein, M., 1988, “Buoyancy-Driven Exchange Flow Through Small Openings in Horizontal Partitions,”Trans of ASME, Vol. 110, pp. 885–893.
Fumizawa, M., 1992, “Experimental Study of Helium-Air Exchange Flow Through a Small Opening,”Kerntechnik, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 156–160.
Hishida, M. and Fumizawa, M., 1992, “Researches on Air Ingress Accidents of HTGR,”Proc. Int. Conf. on Design & Safety of Advanced Nuclear Power Plants, Tokyo, pp. (18.4-1)-(18.4-7)
JAERI, 1992, “Present Status of HTGR Research and Development,”JAERI.
Leach, S. J. and Thompson, H., 1975, “An Investigation of Some Aspects of Flow into Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactors Following an Accidental Depressurization,”J. Br. Nucl. Energy Soc., Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 243–250.
Mercer, A. and Thompson, H., 1975a, “The Exchange Flow in Inclined Ducts,”J. Br. Nucl. Energy Soc., Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 327–334.
Mercer, A. and Thompson, H., 1975b, “The Purging Flow in Inclined Ducts,”J. Br. Nucl. Energy Soc., Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 330–340.
Yang, W. J., 1989,Handbook of Flow Visualization, Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, New York, pp. 205–206.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kang, Ti. Experimental study on helium-air exchange flow through small openings with vertical partition. KSME International Journal 12, 1184–1193 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02942592
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02942592