Dryout occurrence in helically coiled steam generators for nuclear applications

Dryout phenomena have been experimentally investigated in a helically coiled steam generator tube. The experiences carried out in the present work are part of a wide experimental program devoted to the study of a GEN III+ innovative nuclear power plant [1].The experimental facility consists in an electrically heated AISI 316L stainless steel coiled tube. The tube is 32 meters long, 12.53 mm of inner diameter, with a coil diameter of 1m and a pitch of 0.79 m, resulting in a total height of the steam generator of 8 meters. The thermo-hydraulics conditions for dryout investigations covered a spectrum of mass fluxes between 199 and 810 kg/m2s, the pressures ranges from 10.7 to 60.7 bar, heat fluxes between 43.6 to 209.3 kW/m2.Very high first qualities dryout, between 0.72 and 0.92, were found in the range of explored conditions, comparison of our results with literature available correlations shows the difficulty in predicting high qualities dryout in helical coils.