Experimental investigation on the phenomenon of steam condensation induced water hammer in a horizontal pipe

The condensation induced water hammer (CIWH) phenomenon may cause serious damage to the pipes and related system, which often occurs during the steam-water direct contact condensation process. In this paper, an experimental investigation was performed to study CIWH phenomenon caused by steam-water direct contact condensation in a horizontal pipe. The entire CIWH process was captured by a high speed video camera and its pressure fluctuation was synchronously measured. Four typical flow patterns were observed during CIWH process: stratification flow, wave flow, slug flow and bubble collapse. Bubble collapse would generate a high pressure peak. Based on different variations of steam-water phase interface and pressure fluctuation signals, three types of CIWH were defined: non-periodic CIWH, periodic CIWH and no CIWH. A CIWH region map was given considering the effect of steam mass flux and water temperature. In periodic CIWH region, the generation frequency of CIWH was found to range from 0.19 Hz to 0.39 Hz, which decreased with the rise of steam mass flux and water temperature. A dimensionless correlation was obtained to predict Strouhal number of CIWH generation frequency. Predicted values corresponded well to the experimental data with the deviation in the range of −16% to +23%.