Pressure drop of single/two-phase flows through porous bed with sand particles

Motivated by reducing the uncertainties in quantification of debris bed coolability in a severe accident of light water reactors (LWRs), this paper reports experimental studies on the pressure drops of single /two phase flows through packed porous beds with sand particles. A test facility named DEBECO-LT is constructed to investigate the friction laws of adiabatic single and two-phase flow through a particulate bed. From the single flow test, the effective diameter of bed with sands particles can be derived from the measured pressure drops and the Ergun equation. Based on this effective diameter, two phase flow tests are performed and the prediction models are verified by comparing the measured data and the calculations with different analysis models. The results show that in the case of beds with smaller sands particles, the measured pressure drops show gradual increasing tendency with fluid flowrate, and the predictions of Reed model are closer to the measured two-phase flow pressure drop at higher flowrates. For the packed beds with coarse sands particles, the pressure drops would show descent-ascent tendency and there were hardly any models predicting well the measured pressure drop. There is a clear need to develop an accurate analysis models for the bed with coarse particles.