Influence of Mushy Zone Constant on Solid-Liquid Phase Change Behaviors and Characteristics of Molten Salt in Filling Process

However, the freezing point of molten salt is usually high enough presencing a risk of coolant freezing that plugs pipelines, the phenomenon of its solid-liquid phase changing is an essential problem. Aims to present the process of the molten salt filling cold pipe with solidification-melting behaviors and study a relatively suitable value of mushy zone constant for molten salt.The commercial CFD code is used to numerically simulate the process and a existing experiment is used to support the research.

The cases results show that mushy zone constant (5×103≤A-mush≤5×105) significantly affect penetration distance and A-mush= 5×104 is suitable for molten salt in mushy zone. Based on the study, proper selection of mushy zone constant is very much necessary for the accurate prediction of solid-liquid phase change behaviors and characteristics. The transient process of molten salt filling cold pipe is presented detailedly and a method for determining the mushy zone constant is proposed.