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Transient Heat Transfer Study of Direct Contact Condensation of Steam in Spray Cooling Water

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Abstract

We conducted a transient experimental investigation of steam–water direct contact condensation in the absence of non-condensible gas in a laboratory-scale column with the inner diameter of 325 mm and the height of 1045 mm. We applied a new analysis method for the steam state equation to analyze the molar quantity change in steam over the course of the experiment and determined the transient steam variation. We also investigated the influence of flow rates and temperatures of cooling water on the efficiency of steam condensation. Our experimental results show that appropriate increasing of the cooling water flow rate can significantly accelerate the steam condensation. We achieved a rapid increase in the total volumetric heat transfer coefficient by increasing the flow rate of cooling water, which indicated a higher thermal convection between the steam and the cooling water with higher flow rates. We found that the temperature of cooling water did not play an important role on steam condensation. This method was confirmed to be effective for rapid recovering of steam.

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Abbreviations

DCC:

Direct contact condensation

ECCS:

Emergency core cooling system

EOS:

Equation of state

RKS:

Soave–Redlich–Kwong equation

p :

Absolute pressure, kPa

V :

Molar volume, mL/mol

T :

Temperature, °C

T s :

Steam temperature, °C

d :

Diameter of column, mm

R :

Gas constant, mL kPa/(mol K)

L w :

Flow rates of cooling water, L/h

n :

Molar quantity, mol

Q :

Heat flux between steam and cooling water, kW

C p,c :

Specific heat capacity, kJ/(kg °C)

t w , in :

Inlet temperature of water, °C

t w , out :

Outlet temperature of water, °C

Δt m :

Logarithmic mean temperature difference, °C

ρ w :

Water density, kg/m3

h v :

Volumetric heat transfer coefficient, kW/(m3 K)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yiping Wang, Yunfa Hu & Qunwu Huang

  2. School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yiping Wang

  3. Tianjin University Research Institute of Architectural Design, Tianjin, 300073, China

    Yong Cui

Authors
  1. Yiping Wang
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  2. Yunfa Hu
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  3. Qunwu Huang
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  4. Yong Cui
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Correspondence to Qunwu Huang.

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Wang, Y., Hu, Y., Huang, Q. et al. Transient Heat Transfer Study of Direct Contact Condensation of Steam in Spray Cooling Water. Trans. Tianjin Univ. 24, 131–143 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-017-0106-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12209-017-0106-6

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