This award will support the participation of U.S. scientists in a seminar on two-phase flow dynamics organized jointly by Professor Owen Jones, Jr. of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Professor Itaru Michiyoshi of Kyoto University, Japan. Participants from the United States and Japan will meet in Kyoto, Japan during July 1988. The seminar will feature a broad review of the status of research on two-phase flow dynamics, including the following topics: formulation of field equations and closure conditions, flow regime modeling and dynamics, interfacial area density modeling, nonequilibrium modeling, hydrodynamic instabilities, pressure wave propagation and shock phenomena, critical two-phase flow, vapor explosions, forced convective heat transfer, post dryout heat transfer, numerical methods and closure relationships, and computer analysis of two-phase flows. Research in two-phase flow and heat transfer is motivated in large part by the great need to understand the phenomena taking place during postulated abnormal operational transients and accidents in nuclear reactors. Japanese research in this area can be characterized as quite fundamental, while U.S. scientists have tended recently to deal with more applied work. Thus, the direct interaction to be provided by this seminar is expected to contribute significantly to the knowledge base in the area of two-phase flow dynamics. This will lead to progress in energy conversion research, especially regarding nuclear safety systems.
