Experimental Investigation on Plume Length of Submerged Steam Jet through Spargers

The direct contact condensation of saturated steam with a mass flux between 300 and1100 kg·m−2·s−1 submerged in the subcooled water at a temperature of 35 to 65℃ was studied experimentally with I-type side-opening spargers, which apertures were 4, 10 and 16 mm, respectively. The results show that: when the aperture is fixed, the penetration length of the steam plume increases with the increasing of the steam mass flux and the pool water temperature. The penetration length of the steam plume through a large-opening sparger is close to that through a straight nozzle, and the deviation between the fitting value and the experimental value is within ±15%. The penetration length of the steam plume through a small-opening sparger is obviously lower than that through a straight nozzle, and the deviation between the fitting value and the experimental value is up to 80%. The steam mass flux is re-calculated utilizing the correlation specified for a contraction nozzle to consider the injecting characteristic of an I-type sparger, and the deviation between the fitted value and the experimental value is within ±20%. A new semi-empirical correlation is fitted and the discrepancy between the prediction and the experimental value is within ±10%.