Pk. Vijayan et al., An assessment of pressure drop and void fraction correlations with data from two-phase natural circulation loops, HEAT MASS T, 36(6), 2000, pp. 541-548
Void fraction and pressure drop correlations play an important role in pred
icting the performance of natural circulation loops. Hence an assessment of
the commonly used and often cited correlations for pressure drop and void
fraction has been carried out with data from natural circulation loops. Thi
s assessment considered 33 void fraction correlations and 14 pressure drop
correlations. The void fraction correlations were initially tested against
the various limiting conditions. Only 14 correlations were found to satisfy
at least two limiting conditions (i.e., at x = 0; alpha = 0 and at x = 1;
alpha = 1) and were assessed against the data. This assessment showed that
the Chexal et al. (1996) correlation is better than all the others consider
ed. The assessment of pressure drop correlations were carried out with the
Chexal et al. (1996) correlation for void fraction and Saha-Zuber model for
the onset of subcooled boiling. This assessment showed that most correlati
ons give predictions close to each other.