CFD validation of condensation heat transfer in scaled-down small modular reactor applications, Part 2: Steam and non-condensable gas

This paper presents the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation and scaling assessment of the condensation heat transfer (CHT) models in the presence of non-condensable gas for the passive containment cooling system (PCCS) of the small modular reactor (SMR). The STAR-CCM+ software with 3D scaled-down SMR containment geometries was used in CFD simulations with steam and non-condensable gas (NCG). The limitations and approximations of the previous studies were resolved to avoid scaling distortion and uncertainties. Air was used as the NCG gas with steam. The multi-component gas model was used to define the steam–NCG mixture, and the condensation-seed parameter was used as the source term for the fluid film model. Three different turbulence models were used to check the heat flux performances and temperature distributions on the coolant side. The heat flux was estimated from the axial coolant bulk temperature, which was identical to the test data reduction method. An implicit-unsteady numerical solver was applied to the conjugate heat transfer models between the gas, liquid, and solid regions. Detailed simulations were performed, and simulation results were validated with the measured parameters experimentally. The condensation heat transfer performance was quantified using non-dimensional numbers and compared for different scaled geometries to identify the scaling distortions.