Air/steam flow and steam wetness dependence on acoustic resonance in safety relief valves

Many experimental studies related to the flow-induced acoustic resonance closed side branches have been reported. However, few studies have reported on the effects of air/steam flow and steam wetness dependence on fluctuating pressure amplitude. Therefore, we investigated the effect of air/steam flow and steam wetness dependence on fluctuating pressure amplitude by conducting a high temperature and high pressure tests at the Hitachi Utility Steam Test Leading Facility (HUSTLE). The test section consisted of a main pipe and a side branch. The side branch was mounted on the long straight main pipe. Fluctuating pressures at the end face of the side branches were measured. The following two results were obtained; the first is that the air/steam flow had little effect on the fluctuating pressure amplitude normalized by dynamic pressure and frequency normalized by the resonance frequency; the second is that under the acoustic resonance (St = 0.41) and non-resonance (St = 0.55) conditions, fluctuating pressure and frequency changed little with steam wetness. The steam wetness during the boiling water reactor operation was less than 0.1%; thus, there was no effect of steam wetness on the acoustic pressure amplitude and the frequency under this operating condition.