EXPERIMENT BACKGROUND
In a nuclear reactor, there exists some type of liquid coolant to dissipate heat from the super-heated radioactive core. A coolant system is absolutely necessary to provide several functions. The main functions of the cooling system are to provide a satisfactory temperature operating range for the reactor, and to transfer the thermal energy from the core to a turbine or other form of energy conversion.
In a typical commercial pressurized water reactor, the reactor core creates heat, thus pressurizing a primary coolant loop carrying the heat to a steam generator. The steam generator then vaporizes the water to a secondary loop to drive the turbine, which produces electricity. Current systems involve super advanced mechanical and electrical gas structures, which are very complex and expensive to design.
The system we will test will be a simple steam generator that uses water and a non-radioactive heating element core. This experiment is a simple liquid-cooled system that will consist of a water pump, pipes, safety valves, sensors, and tanks. The water will travel through a system of water passages into a cylindrical container. In this container, the water will come in contact with a heating element and be heated to boiling temperature. For a portion of the test runs, a pump will be circulating the water past the heating element at varying speeds. For other test points, the water will not be pumped at all, remaining static around the heating element.
Some nuclear reactors use some type of liquid coolant to dissipate heat from the core. With a liquid coolant such as water, there is a possibility that the water will be turned to steam when it comes in contact with the heated core. In a 1G environment it is easy to remove the steam because this steam can rise to the top of the cylinder container due to buoyancy effects. In a zero-gravity environment, it becomes more difficult to remove the steam from around the heating core because buoyancy does not exist. The first goal of our team's experiment is to observe and measure the phenomenon in which this steam collects on the heating core. It will be valuable to measure to what extent the layer of vapor that is generated insulates the heating element from the coolant in zero gravity. A simple non-nuclear electric heating element will be used as the heating core. The second goal is to use a pump to vary the flow rate of coolant past the heating core, and observe the differences in insulation that occurs.