Critical flow experiment and analysis for supercritical fluid

The use of Supercritical Fluids (SCF) has been proposed for numerous power cycle designs as part of the Generation IV advanced reactor designs, and can provide for higher thermal efficiency. One particular area of interest involves the behavior of SCF during a blowdown or depressurization process. Currently, no data are available in the open literature at supercritical conditions to characterize this phenomenon. A preliminary computational analysis, using a homogeneous equilibrium model when a second phase appears in the process, has shown the complexity of behavior that can occur. Depending on the initial thermodynamic state of the SCF, critical flow phenomena can be characterized in three different ways; the flow can remain in single phase (high temperature), a second phase can appear through vaporization (high pressure low temperature) or condensation (high pressure, intermediate temperature). An experimental facility has been built at the University of Wisconsin to study SCF depressurization through several diameter breaks. The preliminary results obtained show that the experimental data can be predicted with good agreement by the model for all the different initial conditions.