CFD simulations of direct-contact condensation of horizontal vapor jets

Direct-contact condensation of vapor jets in a water pool has been studied experimentally with the SEF-POOL test facility at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT (LUT University). In the experiments, vapor jets were injected horizontally into a water pool through three orifices having a diameter of 16 mm. The temperature of the water was fairly high (67 °C) and the mass flux of steam through the orifices was quite low (24.5 kg/m²s). The classification maps found in literature suggest that the parameters of the experiment are in the transition region between condensation oscillation and chugging. One of the direct-contact condensation (DCC) experiments was simulated with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) calculations. In the simulations, the reactingTwoPhaseEulerFoam solver from OpenFOAM Foundation development line was used. The simulation results were compared with pressure measurements and high-speed video from the experiment. The calculated chugging oscillation was found to be qualitatively quite similar as in the experiment. The period of the oscillation was, however, in the simulations shorter than in the experiment. The calculated pressure oscillations were clearly higher than the measured values. The reactingTwoPhaseEulerFoam solver was found to be robust and fast, when proper selection of solver parameters were chosen.