Measurements of liquid film and droplets of annular two-phase flow on a rod-bundle geometry with spacer

Measurements have been conducted to simultaneously consider both liquid films and droplets of the annular flow on a 3 × 3 simulating BWR fuel rod-bundle test-section with spacers. The optical system of a high speed camera and a tele-microscope was used to record the backlight images at the gap between a corner rod and a side rod of the bundle at high time and space resolutions. The data obtained from the liquid film showed that the mean film thickness, wave height, power spectral density, and wave velocity at the corner rod are larger than those at the side rod, and that the influences of the spacer are different in the cases of low and high gas superficial velocities. Simultaneously, the data containing size and spatial distributions as well as the axial velocity distribution of liquid droplets were obtained. In the case of lower gas flow rates, the spacer generates not only a large number of small droplets but also big droplets whose size exceeds the maximum droplet diameter at upstream. At further downstream, the spatial distribution of the droplets indicates an asymmetry characteristic, which emphasizes the contribution of the droplet impingement mechanism to the entrainment phenomena. Moreover, a close-up observation at right up- and downstreams of the spacer was conducted to describe the interactions between the two-phase flow and this structure. By using these new experimental arrangements, the interaction mechanisms among the wavy liquid film, droplets and spacer were discussed.