Subcooled water flow boiling at 1. 66 MPa under uniform high heat flux conditions

Steady-state subcooled water flow boiling experiments have been carried out in a uniformly heated horizontal circular channel with an exit pressure of 1.66 MPa and with the mass velocity G varying from 4.4 to 32.0 Mg/m{sup 2} {center dot} s. These experiments are related to high heat flux removal in fusion reactor beam dumps and first walls in compact fusion reactors. For the chosen values of L/D and exit pressure, the measured critical heat flux (CHF) values are higher than any previous values for smooth tubes in the literature. An increase in the exit pressure resulted in an increase in the slope of this relationship. However, the local heat transfer coefficient actually decreased as the pressure increased, for the same power level and mass velocity.