Improvement of gas entrainment prediction method; Introduction of surface tension effect

Ito, Kei; Sakai, Takaaki; Eguchi, Yuzuru*; Monji, Hideaki*; Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Uchibori, Akihiro ; Xu, Y.*

A gas entrainment (GE) prediction method has been developed to establish design criteria for the large-scale sodium-cooled fast reactor (JSFR) systems. In this paper, the evaluation accuracy of gas core lengths is improved by introducing the surface tension effects into the prototype GE prediction method. For the improvement, the mechanical balance between gravitational, centrifugal, and surface tension forces is considered. The improved GE prediction method is validated by analyzing the gas core lengths observed in simple experiments. Results show that the analytical gas core lengths calculated by the improved GE prediction method become shorter in comparison to the prototype GE prediction method, and are in good agreement with the experimental data. In addition, the experimental data under different temperature and surfactant concentration conditions are reproduced by the improved GE prediction method.