Publications Details

Gas blowthrough and flow quality correlations for use in the analysis of high pressure melt ejection (HPME) events

Pilch, M.; Griffith, R.O.

A number of correlations describing the advent of gas blowthrough and the subsequent exit quality were collected and examined. A simple scaling analysis was applied to these correlations to identify important nondimensional groups, and the range of values for these dimensionless groups at nuclear power plant (NPP) and experimental scales were used to examine the applicability of the correlations at different scales. The performance of each of the correlations was also assessed over a typical parameter range for NPP and experimental conditions. The Gluck correlations for the onset of gas blowthrough is recommended for high pressure melt ejection analyses. AL new model is developed for predicting the two-phase flow quality following the onset of gas blowthrough. Uncertainty estimates for the blowthrough correlation and the flow quality correlation are quantified.