ASME V&V 2020

Virtual Symposium

• DECEMBER 2019

Validation and Verification of ANSYS

FLUENT Boiling Capabilities
May 20, 2020

Gustavo Montoya
Mohammed Azhar
Amine Ben Hadj Ali
Jay Sanyal
Markus Braun
Introduction
• Boiling occurs in many industrial applications: nuclear reactors, heat exchangers, steam generators

• Prediction of the void fraction profiles and other design parameters in these boiling flows is essential for
design and safety analysis of such systems

• In the nuclear industry, for instance, interest in the prediction of two-phase flow behaviours is of great
importance to the safety analysis of nuclear reactors

• Classic Validation Experiments include:

➢ Wall Boiling and Condensation in Vertical Pipe (Bartolomei et al., 1980)
➢ Wall Boiling in a Rectangular Duct (Pierre and Bankoff, 1967)
➢ Dry Out and Post Dry Out Heat Transfer in Tube Geometry (Hoyer, 1997)

• We will present results of experiment analyses aimed at validating the RPI wall boiling model in ANSYS
Fluent.

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CFD Modeling of boiling flows
Partitioned Heat Fluxes:
• The RPI model contains sub-models for: ➢ Convective turbulent liquid heat flux
➢ Quenching heat flux
‐ Partitioned heat fluxes ➢ Evaporative heat flux
➢ Convective turbulent vapor heat flux DNB+CHF
‐ Bubble dynamics
‐ Turbulence interaction Bubble Dynamics:
➢ Nucleate site density
‐ Interfacial heat and mass transfer ➢ Frequency of bubble departure
➢ Bubble departure diameter
• Sub-models for non-equilibrium DNB & CHF ➢ Area of influence
‐ Include convective turbulent heat flux for vapor Turbulence Interaction:
‐ Topological function for flow regime transition ➢ Turbulence dispersion
➢ Bubble induced turbulence

Interfacial Heat and Mass Transfer:

➢ Condensation in the subcooled region
➢ Interface to vapor heat & mass transfer
➢ Interface to liquid heat & mass transfer
➢ Wall evaporative mass transfer

Flow Regime:
➢ Flow regime transition from bubbly flow to
droplet/mist flow

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Bartolomei et al., 1980
• Geometry • Flow parameters
‐ Pipe flow; axial symmetry ‐ Upward directed water flow
‐ Inner radius of pipe R = 6.015 mm ‐ Pressure @Inlet pin = 6.89 MPa
‐ Total pipe length LT= 1.4 m ‐ Parameter Investigation
‐ Heated section length LH= 1.0 m • Mass flux @Inlet Gin
• Liquid Temperature @Inlet Tin
• Wall heat flux qwall

Experiment 𝐌𝐖 𝐤𝐠
𝐆𝐢𝐧 [𝐦𝟐𝐬] 𝐓𝐢𝐧 [𝐊]
𝐪𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥 [ 𝟐 ]
Number 𝐦

2 1.2 1500 495

3 0.8 1500 519
5 0.8 1000 503

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Bartolomei et al., 1980
• Cross-sectional Averaged steam volume
Exp 3
fraction

adiabatic Section

Exp 2

Heated Section

Exp 5

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Bartolomei et al., 1980
• Influence of drag and non-drag forces – Experiment 2

Fig 1 Fig 3 Fig 5

Fig 2 Fig 4 Fig 6

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Hoyer et al., 1997
• Geometry • Flow parameters
‐ Pipe flow; axial symmetry ‐ Upward directed water flow
‐ Inner radius of pipe R = 10, 14.9 and ‐ Pressure @Inlet pin = 7.01 MPa
15mm ‐ Parameter Investigation
‐ Total pipe length LT= 7.0 m • Mass flux @Inlet Gin
▪ 497-1495 𝑘𝑔ൗ𝑚2 𝑠
• Among the available cases the following • Liquid Temperature @Inlet Tin
have to be selected to investigate the
▪ Not given
influence of various parameters
• Wall heat flux qwall
𝑘𝑊
▪ 350 – 863
𝑚2

Cases Diameter Mass Flux Heat Flux Heat Flux Peak

(mm)
1 10 1495 797 Constant
2 14.9 1002 863 Constant
3 15 1001 748 Mid
4 15 1003 617 Top

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Hoyer et al., 1997
• Wall Constant Heat Flux
Constant Heat Flux
temperature
profiles

10mm 14.9mm

Non- Non-
uniform uniform
Heat Flux Heat Flux

15mm 15mm

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Hoyer et al., 1997
• Wall
temperature
profiles
(non-drag
forces study)

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Pierre and Bankoff, 1966
• Geometry
‐ Rectangular duct flow
𝐶𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝐼𝑛𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑉𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝐹𝑙𝑢𝑥 𝐼𝑛𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑢𝑏𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑙
‐ Cross section 11 x 44.45mm (𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑎) 𝒇𝒕 𝐵𝑡𝑢 (𝒅𝒆𝒈 𝑭)
( ) ( )
‐ Total length 1.5494 m 𝒔 ℎ
1 200 3.78 2.28 0.5
‐ Heated section 1.2574m 2 300 2.52 2.28 1.8

‐ 0.292m from the inlet 3 400 2.52 4.56 4.8

4 400 2.52 4.56 9.5
5 400 3.78 6.84 1.2
6 400 3.78 6.84 8.1

7 600 3.78 9.12 4.2

8 600 3.78 9.12 12.6

9 800 2.52 4.56 4.9

10 800 3.78 9.12 4.7

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Pierre and Bankoff, 1966
• Cross-sectional averaged steam volume fractions

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V&V studies (Classical cases): Pierre and Bankoff, 1966
• Cross-sectional steady state cross-sectionalaverage axial steam volume fractions

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Geometry and boundary conditions
• Inlet
– 𝑔 = 1000𝑘𝑔 /𝑚2 Τ𝑠
– 𝑝 = 1 𝑎𝑡𝑚
– 𝑇𝑠𝑢𝑏 = 9𝑜
– 𝑇𝑠𝑎𝑡 =322.15𝑜 𝐾

• Heating wall
– 𝑞ሶ = 88173.3 𝑊 Τ𝑚2
• All other walls
– 𝑞ሶ = 0 𝑊 Τ𝑚2
• Outlet
– 𝑝 = 0 𝑎𝑡𝑚𝑔

Images courtesy by G. Bloch, T. Sattelmayer (TUM/TD)

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• The model is 2D and includes two solid domains
• Heat is applied at the outer wall of the copper domain

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• The mesh used for the
simulations is a structure
cartesian grid

• Geometry is identical to the

experimental facility

• The cell count is 14,590

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Model Setup:
Analysis type Steady state Coupled solver
Pseudo time step = 0.01s
Model RPI Model Critical Heat Flux
Interfacial Forces Vapour phase diameter Boiling diameter
Drag Grace (exponent = 0)
Lift Tomiyama
Lubrication force None
Turbulent dispersion Burns et al. (FAD)
Turbulence interaction Sato
Heat transfer Two-resistance
(Regime-blended Nusselt
number formulations)
Mass transfer Boiling

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Model Setup:

Nucleation site density Lemmert et al.

Area influence coef Delvalle et al.
Bubble waiting time coef 0.8
Correction model Enabled
Turbulence Model K − 𝜔 𝑆𝑆𝑇 Mixture
Surface tension 0.0092 n/m
Interfacial area Particle
Discretization Pressure Presto
Spatial Quick

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Boiling Curve : Effect of Boiling Model Parameters on the wall Temperature

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Boiling model parameters such as bubble departure diameter, bubble departure frequency, and
nucleation site density plays an important role in subcooled boiling simulations. This is because of
these parameters affect the wall heat flux partition model

• Simulation were therefore run to study the effect of these boiling parameters on the predicted wall
heat flux
Simulation matrix for boiling parameter models used in the study

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V&V studies (NUBEKS-project): TUM Boiling Loop Experiment
• Boiling Curve : Effect of Boiling Model Parameters on the wall Temperature

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Conclusions
• Several simulations have been carried out under various combinations of different interfacial sub-models in order to study
the effect of various boiling capabilities in CFD.

• Acceptable agreement has been obtained between the simulated results and the experimental data.

• The largest solution sensitivity have been found regarding changes in the drag, turbulent dispersion force, and bubble
departure frequency.

• The predicted dry out (CHF) and measured location are in good agreement in the novel TUM experimental data.

• The Tolubinski-Konstanchuk / Lemmert-Chawla shows the best agreement against experiments which are FLUENT default
settings.

• The Kocamustafaogullari-Ishii / Lemmert-Chawla and Kocamustafaogullari-Ishii / Kocamustafaogullari-Ishii combination

has been found to highly over predict the wall superheat.

• The next step in our investigation will be to considered a polydispersed size approach, such as the Inhomogeneous Discrete
Method or iDM in FLUENT, which is equivalent to the iMUSIG model of CFX. This should allow a much more realistic
approach to both wall boiling and wall to bulk void transition.

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Please address all your questions to:
gustavo.montoya@ansys.com