Analysis of Flow Instabilities in Forced-Convection Steam Generator

Because of the practical importance of two-phase instabilities, substantial efforts have been made to date to understand the physical phenomena governing such instabilities and to develop computational tools to model the dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical model for the analysis of flow-induced instabilities in forced-convection steam generator. The model is based on the assumption of homogenous two-phase flow and thermodynamic equilibrium of the phases. The thermal capacity of the heater wall has been included in the analysis. The model is used to analysis of flow instabilities in steam generator and to study the effects of system pressure, mass flux, inlet temperature and inlet/outlet restriction, gap size, the ratio of do/di and the ratio of qi/qo on system behavior.