Vibration characteristic of heated rod induced by subcooled flow boiling

A subcooled boiling loop with annular flow channel on an electrically heated rod at the channel axial center was used to make an experimental approach to investigate the vibration characteristic induced by subcooled flow boiling. The experiments were carried out to measure vibration induced in the rod under different conditions of incoming coolant subcooling temperature of 10–80 K, coolant flow rates of 0.1–0.35 × 10⁻³ m³/s and imposed linear power densities of 17–600 W/cm. Distilled water was used as coolant in the loop. The vibration behavior of the rod was measured by using an accelerometer. Also, a high-speed motion analyzer system was used to analyze the bubble behaviors in the different subcooled boiling conditions. The results show the intensive SBIV (subcooled boiling-induced vibration) which highly depends on dynamic force generated by rapid growth and collapse of vapor bubbles under high heat flux loading whilst they still attach to the heating surface. These behaviors were influenced strongly by the conditions of subcooling temperature, linear power density and flow rate.