MECHANISTIC MODELING OF DESUPERHEATER PERFORMANCE

Desuperheaters and other steam conditioning equipment utilize sprays o f subcooled water to regulate the temperature of superheated steam. De spite widespread applications, fundamental aspects of spray cooling in desuperheaters remain essentially empirical. Proper application requi res correct design of a variety of geometric configurations for the fl ow field and the spray system, The objectives of this effort were to m echanistically model the spray cooling process, identify key processes for refinement, and provide methods to predict and improve the perfor mance of desuperheaters. Modeling of the spray-vapor mixture is based on a rigorous transient, three-dimensional, two-fluid representation o f the conservation equations, The droplet-vapor interphase transfer pr ocesses and turbulence are appropriately modeled. The conservation equ ations are numerically solved using an implicit, Eulerian, finite-diff erence scheme. Prototypical desuperheaters are modeled, and parametric and sensitivity calculation results are presented.