Transient Heat Transfer Study of Direct Contact Condensation of Steam in Spray Cooling Water

Abstract

We conducted a transient experimental investigation of steam–water direct contact condensation in the absence of non-condensible gas in a laboratory-scale column with the inner diameter of 325 mm and the height of 1045 mm. We applied a new analysis method for the steam state equation to analyze the molar quantity change in steam over the course of the experiment and determined the transient steam variation. We also investigated the influence of flow rates and temperatures of cooling water on the efficiency of steam condensation. Our experimental results show that appropriate increasing of the cooling water flow rate can significantly accelerate the steam condensation. We achieved a rapid increase in the total volumetric heat transfer coefficient by increasing the flow rate of cooling water, which indicated a higher thermal convection between the steam and the cooling water with higher flow rates. We found that the temperature of cooling water did not play an important role on steam condensation. This method was confirmed to be effective for rapid recovering of steam.

Keywords

Direct contact condensation / Steam / Spray cooling water / Transient heat transfer performance / Steam state equation / Volumetric heat transfer coefficient

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