Study on Mixing Phenomena in T-Pipe Junction; Temperature Measurement Test in Pipe by Liquid Crystal Sheet

Tanaka, Masaaki  ; Kawashima, Shigeyo*; Igarashi, Minoru; Hayashi, Kenji; Tobita, Akira; Kamide, Hideki 

Temperature fluctuation due to mixing of hot and cold fluids gives thermal fatigue to the structure (thermal striping phenomena).Investigation of this phenomenon is significant for the safety of a fast breeder reactor, which uses liquid metal as a coolant. In Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, experiments and numerical analyses have been carried out to understand this phenomenon and also to construct the evaluation rule, which can be applied to the design. A water experiment of fluid mixing in T-pipe with long cycle fluctuation (WATLON),which notices thermal striping phenomena in the T-pipe junction, is performed to investigate the key factor of mixing phenomena by reason of long cycle fluctuation observed in a plant. By the former visualization test, it was showed that the flow pattern of branch pipe jet could be classified into (A) impinging jet, (B) deflecting jet (C) re-attachment jet and (D) wall jet according to the inflow condition. It was confirmed that the each jet pattern could be predicted by the momentum ratio of the each piping fluid. In this study, a thermo-chromic liquid crystal sheet was put on the inner wall in the main pipe, and temperature field on the wall surface was visualized. We established a new method to convert the color image data to temperature data. And measurement uncertainty of this method was evaluated + and - about 2.0 [deg-C], using by the typical picture in the temperature calibration test. From the temperature fluctuation visualization test by liquid crystal sheet, the cold spot was formed in just downstream region from the outlet of the branch pipe in the cases of the wall jet and impinging jet. Since this cold spot moved in time, high value of temperature fluctuation intensity was shown around the cold spot. And the validity of this method was shown from the comparison of the thermocouple data installed in a wall surface with the temperature conversion result.