SHF/IAHR International Workshop on “Two-phase Convective Boiling Flow Modelling”

The Société Hydrotechnique de France (SHF) and the International Association for Hydraulics Research (IAHR) with the sponsorship of the Société Française des Thermiciens (SFT) are organizing a two-day seminar on  two-phase convective flow modeling.

There are key issues in nuclear reactor safety that rely on in-depth understanding of basic two-phase flow phenomena with heat transfer and phase change. Among them, convective boiling is one of the most challenging situations. Our inability to predict accurately heat transfer and heat transfer regime transitions in two-phase flows in the real nuclear reactor flow conditions and fuel bundle geometry results in increased safety margins and impedes the development of new fuel designs.

With the advent of new generation codes and the increase of the available computational power, it is believed that significant progress can be made by using CFD for nuclear fuel design thus leading to a drastic reduction in development costs. In France, CEA, EDF, AREVA and IRSN have launched the NEPTUNE project aimed at providing tools describing two-phase flow and heat transfer that are validated in the parameter range of the industrial applications. But it seems necessary to promote collaborative research on this subject at the widest scale. The FP6 European project NURESIM is a first step into international collaboration, but we would like to widen this joint R&D effort in the specific area of convective boiling flows (physical, experimental and numerical approaches).

To achieve this goal we propose an international topical meeting to be held in Grenoble in September, 8-9, 2008, organized by Société Hydrotechnique de France (SHF) and the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR).  All relevant opinions will be collected in the form of a 20 minute oral presentation together with a short text or extended abstract. The main topics to be discussed will be :

•           Scales and averaging methods in convective boiling flow, multi-scale approaches

•           Experimental characterization and techniques

•           Physical modelling and understanding of heat transfer mechanisms

•           Benchmarking exercises.

Any contribution from academics, scientists and engineers is welcome provided that it contributes to identifying partnership and a consistent research program attractive enough to raise the interest of industry, research organizations and governmental funding agencies.

The main outcome of this seminar will be summarized in an overall strategy towards an increase of knowledge into the problem of two-phase flow modelling.

Important dates to note :

•           Deadline for the reception of abstracts ( 1 page) : April, 14th  2008

•           Deadline for authors notification of accepted abstracts : April 21st , 2008

•           Deadline for the reception of full papers: July 15th, 2008.