Influence of Working Pressure and Pressure Difference on Static Droplet Evaporation Characteristics

Author(s):  
Fulong Zhao ◽  
Chenru Zhao ◽  
Hanliang Bo ◽  
Ying Liu

The function of steam separator is to remove the small droplets carried by the vapor stream and to provide qualified saturated vapor for the steam turbine in the nuclear power station. The separating characteristics of the steam-water separation plant are of vital importance to the safe operation, economy as well as reliability of the power station. In order to satisfy the requirement of power increase of large nuclear power station as well as space compaction of the vessel power plant, the steam vapor quality must be improved, which requires that the steam-water separator has better separating function to make sure that it can provide the qualified steam on the condition of higher steam pressure, power load as well as circulating ratio. There are many complex phenomena when the droplet moves in the steam-water separating plant, including the droplet emergence, the droplet moving with steam vapor, the collision between droplets and with solid wall, evaporation. It is a good way to study the steam-water separating characteristics for the microcosmic behavior of the droplet. Thus, in order to know the droplet evaporation characteristics in the steam-water separator, the static droplets phase transformation model under the pressure variation condition is built according to the physical phenomenon description and mechanism comprehension when the droplet moves with the steam vapor in the steam-water separation plants. This model is solved by the typical four steps Runge-Kutta method and validated by comparing with the experimental results. Then, the influence of working pressure as well as pressure difference between the droplet surface and the environment on the static droplet evaporation characteristics is conducted. The simulation results show that the working pressure and pressure difference have great impact on the static droplet evaporation characteristics. With the increase of the working pressure, the droplet evaporation rate becomes slower, that is because the physical property parameters of the water vapor and water become closer to each other and the self-diffusion coefficient of the water vapor as well as the evaporation condensation coefficient become smaller, which results in the droplet evaporation rate becomes slower. When the pressure difference between the droplet surface and the environment rises, the droplet evaporates faster, that is because the vapor velocity around the droplet becomes larger and the droplet evaporates faster. These results of the simulation can lay the foundation for subsequent study of the droplet evaporation characteristics when the droplet moving in the separating plants and for the droplet fast evaporation characteristics when the environment pressure changes fast.

Author(s):  
KSENIA A. Batishcheva ◽  
ATLANT E. Nurpeiis

With an increase in the productivity of power equipment and the miniaturization of its components, the use of traditional thermal management systems becomes insufficient. There is a need to develop drip heat removal systems, based on phase transition effects. Cooling with small volumes of liquids is a promising technology for microfluidic devices or evaporation chambers, which are self-regulating systems isolated from the external environment. However, the heat removal during evaporation of droplets into a limited volume is a difficult task due to the temperature difference in the cooling device and the concentration of water vapor that is unsteady in time depending on the mass of the evaporated liquid. This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the distilled water microdrops’ (5-25 μl) evaporation on an aluminum alloy AMg6 with the temperatures of 298-353 K in an isolated chamber (70 × 70 × 30 mm3) in the presence of heat supply to its lower part. Based on the analysis of shadow images, the changes in the geometric dimensions of evaporating drops were established. They included the increase in the contact diameter, engagement of the contact line due to nano roughening and chemical composition inhomogeneous on the surface (90-95% of the total evaporation time) of the alloy and a decrease in the contact diameter. The surface temperature and droplet volume did not affect the sequence of changes in the geometric dimensions of the droplets. It was found that the droplet volume has a significant effect on the evaporation time at relatively low substrate temperatures. The results of the analysis of droplet evaporation rates and hygrometer readings have shown that reservoirs with salt solutions can be used in isolated chambers to control the concentration of water vapor. The water droplets evaporation time was determined. The analysis of the time dependences of the evaporation rate has revealed that upon the evaporation of droplets in an isolated chamber under the conditions of the present experiment, the air was not saturated with water vapor. The latter did not affect the evaporation rate.


Author(s):  
Fulong Zhao ◽  
Qianfeng Liu ◽  
Chenru Zhao ◽  
Hanliang Bo ◽  
Ying Liu ◽  
...  

The steam-water separator is vitally important equipment to remove the droplets entrained by the vapor stream to provide dry saturated steam for the steam turbine in the nuclear power station. With the development of the large nuclear power station and the vessel nuclear power plant, the steam-water separation performance should be more efficient under the condition of higher pressure, power load and circulating ratio. The droplet motion model, which is solved by typical four steps Runge-Kutta method and validated against the experimental results, is developed according to the physical phenomenon description and the mechanism comprehension of the vapor entrained droplets moving in the wave-type vanes separator. The Euler-Lagrange methodology is adopted to simulate the moving droplet entrained by the vapor stream in the wave-type vanes separator and the separation performance is investigated. The separation efficiency of the separator and motion trajectories of droplets with various sizes are presented. Stokes Number (St) of diverse droplets is obtained to analyze the influence of Stokes Number on the moving droplets trajectories and the separation efficiency. The results reveal that the values of Stokes Number for most of the moving droplets in the wave-type vanes separator are beyond 1, which indicates that most of droplets are likely to collide with the solid wall of the separator. Only when the droplet velocity is smaller than 1 m/s or the droplet radius is less than 2 μm, the Stokes Number may be below 1 and the moving droplets can be entrained by the stream flow until escaping from the separator. The analysis can forecast the maximum critical separation size of the droplets that cannot be removed, and the minimum critical separation size of the droplets that can be removed throughly by the separator and guide the design of the separator.


Author(s):  
William J. Gerken ◽  
Matthew A. Oehlschlaeger

Nanofluids, stable colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in a base fluid, have potential applications in the heat transfer, combustion and propulsion, manufacturing, and medical fields. Experiments were conducted to determine the evaporation rate of room temperature, millimeter-sized pendant droplets of ethanol laden with varying (0–3%) weight percentages of 40–60 nm aluminum nanoparticles (nAl). High-resolution droplet images were collected as a function of time for the determination of D-square law evaporation rates. Results show an asymptotic decrease in droplet evaporation rate with increasing nAl loading. The evaporation rate decreases by approximately 15% at around 1% to 3% nAl loading relative to the evaporation rate of pure ethanol, a reduction greater than can be explained by reduction in the vapor pressure of an ideal nanofluid mixture by Raoult’s law. It is hypothesized that the reduction in evaporation rate could be due to two phenomena: 1) the reduction in the ethanol volume fraction available for evaporation due to an interfacial layer on the immersed nanoparticle surface and 2) the aggregation of nanoparticles within the droplet and at the droplet surface, reducing the liquid diffusion rate to the surface and the liquid volume fraction at the surface available for evaporation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 4657-4667
Author(s):  
Erik Kerstel

Abstract. A model is presented that gives a quantitative description of the dynamic behavior of a low-humidity water vapor generator in terms of water vapor concentration (humidity) and isotope ratios. The generator is based on the evaporation of a nanoliter-sized droplet produced at the end of a syringe needle by balancing the inlet water flow and the evaporation of water from the droplet surface into a dry-air stream. The humidity level is adjusted by changing the speed of the high-precision syringe pump and, if needed, the dry-air flow. The generator was developed specifically for use with laser-based water isotope analyzers in Antarctica, and it was recently described in Leroy-Dos Santos et al. (2021). Apart from operating parameters such as temperature, pressure, and water and dry-air flows, the model has as “free” input parameters: water isotope fractionation factors and the evaporation rate. We show that the experimental data constrain these parameters to physically realistic values that are in reasonable to good agreement with available literature values. With the advent of new ultraprecise isotope ratio spectrometers, the approach used here may permit the measurement of not only the evaporation rate but also the effective fractionation factors and isotopologue-dependent diffusivity ratios, in the evaporation of small droplets.


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