Nuclear Technology / Volume 152 / Number 1 / October 2005 / Pages 71-86
Technical Paper / Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics
An experimental study is performed to investigate the effect of noncondensable gas in a passive condenser system. A vertical condenser tube is submerged in a water pool where the heat transferred from the condenser tube is removed through boiling. Data are obtained for three operational modes of the passive condenser. Degradation of the condensation with noncondensable gas is investigated. The condensation heat transfer rate is enhanced by increasing the inlet steam flow rate and the system pressure. For the condenser submerged in a saturated water pool, strong primary pressure dependency is observed. A boundary layer-based condensation model and a simple condensation model with the interfacial friction factor correlation are developed. The model predictions are compared with the pure steam data, and the agreement is satisfactory.