Condensation film flowing dynamics on inclined downward facing plate: Experimental and modeling study

In-containment refueling water storage tanks have been equipped as an important coolant source for passive cooling systems in the third-generation reactors. Condensate film collection from the containment wall is the key access for its coolant inventory replenishment. On the containment dome, part of the condensate becomes dripping droplets, which cannot be collected and will be a potential loss of the coolant source. Since rare published works are focused on this filed, this work conducts condensation experiments to evaluate the dynamics characteristics of condensate film and droplets with different bulk conditions. A sliced plate of real containment vessel is employed as the condensing plate, with the inclination angle ranging from horizontal to 60°. In the experiments, four condensate flow patterns are recorded and analyzed. It is found Reynolds number of condensates is an important factor that affects condensate flow patterns. Moreover, an empirical model is developed to predict the condensate dripping loss fraction. In addition, global heat transfer coefficients are recorded and compared with the existing semi-empirical model of condensation heat transfer. The findings in this work could be helpful for the evaluation of raining effect and the proposed model could be utilized in the relative reactor analysis codes.