A numerical study on multi-nozzle spray cooling of downward-facing heater surface

An experimental study on multi-nozzle spray cooling of a downward-facing heater surface has been carried out in the SPAYCOR facility at KTH, to provide data assessing the feasibility of spray cooling for in-vessel melt retention (IVR) in light water reactors. To help understand the characteristics and influential factors of the liquid film formed on the heater surface in spray, a numerical study on the dynamics of an isothermal liquid film on the heater surface has also been performed by adopting the OpenFOAM platform, and Eulerian and Lagrangian methods for liquid film and droplets, respectively. The present study is an extension of the previous modeling from hydrodynamics to thermal-hydraulics of the spray cooling problem, via adding heat flux of the heater and two convective heat transfer models between the heater wall and the liquid film. Moreover, droplets-film interaction model is modified. The SPAYCOR experiment is simulated by the numerical models, and the simulation results show a good agreement between the numerical and experimental data, in particular when the modified droplets-film interaction model is applied. After the validation of the numerical models against the SPAYCOR experiment, the numerical models are employed to investigate influential factors on heat transfer, such as mass flux, nozzle-to-surface distance, and nozzle matrix layout. The results indicate that heat transfer is enhanced by increasing mass flux and decreasing nozzle-to-surface distance, and the change of nozzle matrix from inline to staggered layout has little impact on heat removal capacity or temperature distribution of the multi-nozzle spray cooling.