Physics-basis simulation of bubble pinch-off

Ito, Kei; Koizumi, Yasuo*; Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Kawamura, Takumi*

The authors are developing a high-precision CFD code with an interface tracking method to simulate the gas entrainment (GE) phenomena in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), which might be caused by a highly-intensified free surface vortex. The GE in SFRs is characterized by an elongated interfacial dent along the vortex core and the bubble pinch-off at the tip of the dent. To simulate this complicated phenomenon, our simulation code has physics-basis algorithms which model accurately the interfacial dynamic behavior, the pressure jump condition at an interface and the surface tension. Several verification problems have been already solved and the accuracy of each individual algorithm is confirmed. In this paper, a basic experiment of the GE is simulated to validate the developed code. The simulation result of the entrained flow rate shows comparable value to the experimental data, that is, our simulation code is considered applicable to the evaluation of the GE in SFRs.