Computational Study of Evaporative Film Cooling in a Vertical Rectangular Channel

The present work is focused on the computational analysis of evaporative film cooling, in connection with an experimental campaign carried out at the University of Pisa by the EFFE facility ( E xperiments on F alling F ilm E vaporation). The aim of the study is to contribute to the understanding of the heat and mass transfer mechanisms involved in the problem and to check the possibility of making use of a multipurpose commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code for simulating mass transfer phenomena of interest in the nuclear field. After a description of the assumptions adopted in the mathematical formulation of the problem, the governing equations and the boundary conditions implemented in the code are briefly reported. In particular, the method used to evaluate the mass transfer through the interface is described. Then, the calculated results are analyzed and a comparison with experimental data is made. The improvement in the cooling capabilities of the heated plate due to evaporation with respect to the case of pure convection is also evaluated.