Solving Drift-flux Model Using High-Resolution Spatial Discretization Scheme

Abstract

Accurate modeling and simulation of the two-phase flow phenomena are critical to the system and safety analysis of light water reactors. Compared to the more complex two-fluid model, the drift-flux model treats the two phases as a mixture, and thus the models are formulated to consider the conservation laws of the mixture. The relative motion between the two phases is realized by constitutive correlations. Although the drift flux models have limitations in certain applications, they are widely used in many applications due to their simplicity and applicability to a wide range of two-phase flow problems. First-order numerical schemes are widely used in existing codes, which introduces excessive numerical diffusions. The objective of this work is to investigate a high-resolution spatial scheme in the application to solve drift-flux two-phase flow problems. In this study, a high-resolution spatial discretization scheme has been investigated in the application of solving drift-flux two-phase flow problem. The scheme is validated using existing experimental results. Compared to the first order scheme, it demonstrated excellent capability in reducing numerical error. Extended work will focus on the comparison of numerical errors from discretization schemes and model uncertainties. (authors)