Transition between nucleate and film boiling in rapid transient heating

This article presents an experimental study of rapid transient boiling regimes of distilled water at saturation on a thin tungsten wire of 50 lm diameter. The heating rate varied from 0.5 to 5 10^5 K/s. Heat supply was obtained by periodic pulses of constant voltage with a period large enough to avoid response overlap. Rapid video recording (14,000 fps) was associated with electrical measurements. Two transient phenomena were studied: pulse heating and thermal relaxation. During pulse heating, it was observed that, depending on heating rate, three kinds of behavior exist: (i) only nucleate boiling appears for small heating rates (10^5 K/s), (ii) transition from nucleate boiling to film boiling by bubble coalescence at intermediate heating rates (2.10^5 K/s), and (iii), at higher heating rates, transition to film boiling by vapor wave propagation (speed 20 m/s). This last mechanism is interpreted as homogeneous nucleation process and is qualitatively similar to an autowave process. In the relaxation stage, it is observed that film collapse is characterized by two mechanisms: film break up into nucleate boiling regime or continuous vapor receding. This second mechanism is compared to a conduction model of a temperature traveling wave in the wire. The time variation of the vapor film length predicted by the model is in the range of the experimental data

Thermo-magnetic behaviour of AFM–MFM cantilevers

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments were performed to study the behaviour of AFM cantilevers under an external magnetic field B and temperature field produced by a coil with an iron core. Four cantilever types were studied. Forces were measured for different B values and at various coil-to-cantilever separation distances. The results were analysed on the basis of a phenomenological model. This model contains the contribution of two terms, one monopole-monopole interaction at short distance, and one apparent paramagnetic interaction in del B-2 at large distance, which represents the temperature effects. We observe a good agreement between the model and the experimental data

Experimental study of bubble detection in liquid metal.

Bubble detection in liquid metal is an important issue for various technological applications. For instance, in the framework of Sodium Fast Reactors design, the presence of gas in the sodium flow of the primary and secondary loops is an issue of crucial importance for safety and reliability. Here, the two main gas measurement methods in sodium are ultrasonic testing and eddy-current testing; we investigate the second method in our study. In a first approach, we have performed experiments with liquid metal galinstan containing insulating spherical beads of millimeter size. The liquid metal is probed with an Eddy-current Flowmeter (ECFM) in order to detect the beads and characterize their diameter and position. Results show that the signal measured by the ECFM is correlated with the effect of these parameters. Finally, an analytical model is proposed and compared to the experimental results

Magnetic flux distortion in two-phase liquid metal flow: Model experiment

In this paper, we present the model experiments in order to study the magnetic flux distortion of a two-phase liquid metal flow excited by an AC magnetic field in a range of pulsation where Faraday induction and Lorentz force effects are significant. These experiments realized with solid aluminum rods allow to characterize the effects of flow velocity (0 ≲ U≤1 ms−1), void fraction (0≤α≤6.9 %), pulsation of the AC magnetic field (1.5×103≤ω≤12.5×103 rad s−1), and of two different void geometries. The results are analyzed on the basis of a first order expansion of magnetic flux in U and α. Despite the strong coupling between Faraday induction and Lorentz force effects, the results show that the contributions of U and α on a magnetic flux distortion can be well separated at both low magnetic Reynolds number and α values. These results are independent of void geometry

Magnetoconvection transient dynamics by numerical simulation

We investigate the transient and stationary buoyant motion of the Rayleigh-Bénard instability when the fluid layer is subjected to a vertical, steady magnetic field. For Rayleigh number, Ra, in the range 10^3-10^6, and Hartmann number, Ha, between 0 and 100, we performed three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. To predict the growth rate and the wavelength of the initial regime observed with the numerical simulations, we developed the linear stability analysis beyond marginal stability for this problem. We analyzed the pattern of the flow from linear to nonlinear regime. We observe the evolution of steady state patterns depending on Ra/Ha2 and Ha. In addition, in the nonlinear regime, the averaged kinetic energy is found to depend on Ra and to be independent of Ha in the studied range

Towards Quantitative Void Fraction Measurement With an Eddy Current Flowmeter for Fourth Generation Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors: A Simplified Model

We propose an experimental methodology for the purpose of quantitative void fraction measurements in fourth generation Sodium cooled fast reactors with a standard Eddy Current Flow Meter (ECFM) sensor. The methodology consists of using the technique of ellipse fit and correlate the fluctuations in the angle of inclination of this ellipse with the void fraction. This methodology is applied in this paper to an ideal configuration of periodic grooves on solid aluminium cylinder with various volumic fractions. The effects of physical parameters such as coil excitation frequency, coil current and motion have been studied. The first results show that ECFM is sensitive to void fractions between 0.3% and 6.9%. It further demonstrates that the response to void fraction is insensitive to the mean velocity of the two-phase medium

Destabilization of a liquid metal by nonuniform Joule heating

We study the effect of an impressing AC magnetic field at the bottom of a liquid metal layer of thickness h. In this situation the fluid is set in motion by the buoyancy forces caused by internal heat sources. The heat sources, caused by the Joule effect induced by the AC field, present an exponentially decaying profile, with characteristic length δ. As the magnetic field is horizontal, the Lorentz force has no influence on the dynamics of the system since it contributes only to the magnetic pressure. We propose an analysis of both the transient and fully developed regimes using linear stability analysis (LSA) and direct numerical simulations (DNSs). The transient period is governed by the temporal evolution of the temperature field as well as the development of the convective instability, which can be concomitant and therefore requires adopting a transient LSA algorithm to track these two effects. The DNSs have been performed for various distributions of the heat sources and various total heat input. This corresponds to independently varying δ/h in the range 0.04≤δ/h≤0.45 and a Rayleigh number 1.1×104≤Ra≤1.2×105. We observe the relaxation of the temperature up to the steady conductive profile before the transition to the nonlinear regime when Ra is small, whereas for larger Ra, nonlinear effects appear during the relaxation of the temperature profile. The unsteadiness of the temperature field significantly alters the development of the instability because of a much smaller growth rate. Surprisingly, we observe that δ/h has only a limited influence on averaged quantities as well as on the patterns for both the linear and nonlinear regimes. This comes with the fact that the profiles present an apparent reflectional symmetry, despite the asymmetry of the governing equations

Instabilité de Rayleigh-Bénard sous champ magnétique : structures et transfert de chaleur

Nous étudions l’influence d’un champ magnétique constant et vertical sur les structures de l’instabilité de Rayleigh-Bénard, ainsi que son effet sur les transferts de chaleur en paroi. Proche de la stabilité marginale, l’écoulement développe des structures fines qui s’élargissent lorsqu’on s’éloigne de cette stabilité marginale. Localement, le transfert de chaleur est modifié, les zones de fort transfertcorrespondant aux zones où la vitesse dirigée selon la normale sortante de la paroi est importante. Le transfert global est légèrement diminué par rapport au cas non magnétique

Magnetic field effects on liquid metal free convection

International audienceWe provide a numerical analysis of three-dimensional free convection of a liquid in a Rayleigh-Bénard configuration,subject to a steady and uniform magnetic field, using the finite volume code Jadim. The influence of the Hartmann andRayleigh numbers are studied. We compare our results to several experimental works. As suggested by previousexperiments, the magnetic field tends to lower the heat transfer at the walls. This is caused by a significant alteration ofthe flow structures, due to the Lorentz force. For slightly overcritical Rayleigh numbers, two-dimensional rolls appearbut the flow structure rapidly becomes three-dimensional as we increase the Rayleigh number. The magnetic field tendsto destroy those structures and the transition to a 3D flow is delayed to higher values of the Rayleigh number, when theHartmann number is increased. We show that the averaged heat transfer at the walls decreases, although it remains ofthe same order of magnitude. However the local structure of heat transfer is altered

Nucleate pool boiling in microgravity: recent progress and future prospects

Pool boiling on flat plates in microgravity has been studied for more than 50 years. The results of recent experiments performed in sounding rocket are presented and compared to previous results. At low heat flux, the vertical oscillatory motion of the primary bubble is responsible for the increase in the heat transfer coefficient in microgravity compared to ground experiments. The effect of a non-condensable gas on the stabilisation of the large primary bubble on the heater is pointed out. Experiments on isolated bubbles are also performed on ground and in parabolic flight. The effect of a shear flow on the bubble detachment is highlighted. A force balance model allows determining an expression of the capillary force and of the drag force acting on the bubble