Development of the cross-flow test facility consisting of two subchannels under boiling water reactor conditions

To observe the three-dimensional behavior of the coolant in a fuel bundle of Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), we have developed the Two-subchannel Cross-flow Test Facility (TCTF) which can perform the cross-flow experiment of the vapor-liquid two-phase flow for two subchannels in the BWR thermal hydraulic conditions. In the developed TCTF, the differential pressure fluctuation and the gauge pressure are measured by the piezoelectric pressure transducers and the pressure gauges, respectively, and the Time-averaged Void Fraction (TVF) is measured by the three-dimensional (3D) Xray Computed Tomography (CT) system. From the test operation of the TCTF, the relationship between the differential pressure fluctuation and the volumetric flow rate of the cross flow and the two-dimensional distribution of the TVF were confirmed in test cases. We consider that the accumulation of the data like these test cases contributes to the elucidation of the cross-flow phenomenon.