Condensation heat transfer characteristic in the presence of noncondensable gas on natural convection at high pressure Original Research Article

The steam–gas pressurizer in integrated small reactors experiences very complicated thermal-hydraulic phenomena. Especially, the condensation heat transfer with noncondensable gas under natural convection is an important factor to evaluate the pressurizer behavior. However, few studies have investigated the condensation in the presence of noncondensable gas at high pressure. In this study, therefore, a theoretical model is proposed to estimate the condensation heat transfer at high pressure using the heat and mass transfer analogy. For the high pressure effect, the steam and nitrogen gas tables are used directly to determine the density of the gas mixture and the heat and mass transfer analogy based on mass approach is applied instead of that based on the ideal gas law. A comparison of the results from the proposed model with experimental data obtained from Seoul National University indicates that the condensation heat transfer coefficients increase with increasing system pressure and with decreasing mass fraction of the nitrogen gas. The proposed model is also compared with other conventional correlations proposed in the literature. The proposed model demonstrates the capability to predict the condensation heat transfer coefficients at high pressure better than any other correlation. Finally, the condensate rate is compared to verify the application of the heat and mass transfer analogy at high pressure. The comparison results confirm that the heat and mass transfer analogy can be applied to evaluate the condensation heat and mass transfer at high pressure.