Experimental study and analysis of design parameters for analysis of fluidelastic instability for steam generator tubing

In this paper, the evaluation method of fluidelastic instability (FEI) of newly designed steam generator tubing in pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plants is discussed. To obtain the parameters for prediction of the critical velocity of FEI for steam generator tubes, experimental research is carried out, and the design parameters are determined. Using CFD numerical simulation, the tube array scale of the model experiment is determined, and the experimental device is designed. In this paper, 7 groups of experiments with void fractions of 0% (water), 10%, 20%, 50%, 75%, 85% and 95% were carried out. The critical damping ration, fundamental frequency and critical velocity of FEI of tubes in flowing water were measured. Through calculation, the total mass and instability constant of the immersed tube are obtained. The critical damping ration measured in the experiment mainly included two-phase damping and viscous damping, which changed with the change in void fraction from 1.56% to 4.34%. This value can be used in the steam generator design described in this paper and is conservative. By introducing the multiplier of frequency and square root of total mass per unit length, it is found that the difference between the experimental results and the calculated results is less than 1%, which proves the rationality and feasibility of the calculation method of frequency and total mass per unit length in engineering design. Through calculation, the instability constant is greater than 4 when the void fraction is less than 75%, less than 4 when the void fraction exceeds 75% and only 3.04 when the void fraction is 95%.