Flooding in vertical gas-liquid countercurrent flow through parallel paths. Final report. [PWR; BWR]

An experimental investigation has been conducted on flooding in the vertical gas-liquid countercurrent flow through multiple paths. Results obtained for short path length show similar flooding characteristics as those in the single-path flow, but there do exist secondary behaviors unique to the multiple-path flow due to path interaction. Consistent with the general disturbance criterion, the flow becomes more susceptible to flooding with increasing number of paths and decreasing path spacing on a per flow-path basis. All the experimental results can be correlated by the Wallis and Kutateladze correlations.