Thermal-hydraulic experiments with sodium chloride aqueous solution

Jiao, L.; Liu, W.; Nagatake, Taku ; Takase, Kazuyuki; Yoshida, Hiroyuki  ; Nagase, Fumihisa 

In Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, seawater was injected into the nuclear core, which may change the heat transfer characteristics in the reactor pressure vessels (RPV) due to the different physical properties of seawater and pure water. To remove molten fuel from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants, it is necessary to know the current status of the reactors. Therefore, in this paper, we measured the basic thermal-hydraulic data in an annular tube with a co-axial heater, which includes the heat transfer rate and the pressure drop, using the sodium chloride aqueous solutions and the synthetic seawater as working fluids. The experiments were performed under atmosphere pressure, with the salinity, the fluid mass flux, the inlet temperature and the heat flux used as the parameters. The experimental results and analyses are reported in this paper and the basic influence of the salinity on the heat transfer and the hydraulic characters are proposed.