Numerical investigation of acceleration effect on heat transfer deterioration phenomenon in supercritical water

It is important to understand the heat transfer deterioration (HTD) phenomenon for specifying cladding temperature limits in the fuel assembly design of supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR). In this study, a numerical investigation of heat transfer in supercritical water flowing through vertical tube with high mass flux and high heat flux is performed by using six low-Reynolds number turbulence models. The capabilities of the addressed models in predicting the observed phenomena of experimental study are shortly analyzed. Mechanisms of the effect of flow structures and fluid properties on heat transfer deterioration phenomenon are also discussed. Numerical results have shown that the turbulence is significantly suppressed when the large-property-variation region spreads to the buffer layer near the wall region, resulting in heat transfer deterioration phenomenon. The property variations of dynamic viscosity and specific heat capacity in supercritical water can impair the deterioration in heat transfer, while the decrease of thermal conductivity contributes to the deterioration.

[1]  Klaus Bremhorst,et al.  A Modified Form of the k-ε Model for Predicting Wall Turbulence , 1981 .

[2]  T. Schulenberg,et al.  Three pass core design proposal for a high performance light water reactor , 2008 .

[3]  W. Jones,et al.  The prediction of laminarization with a two-equation model of turbulence , 1972 .

[4]  T. Schulenberg,et al.  Supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) development through GIF collaboration , 2009 .

[5]  Keh-Chin Chang,et al.  A Modified Low-Reynolds-Number Turbulence Model Applicable to Recirculating Flow in Pipe Expansion , 1995 .

[6]  T. Shih,et al.  New time scale based k-epsilon model for near-wall turbulence , 1993 .

[7]  P. Griffith,et al.  The Effect of Swirl, Inlet Conditions, Flow Direction, and Tube Diameter on the Heat Transfer to Fluids at Supercritical Pressure , 1970 .

[8]  M. Anderson,et al.  Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Characteristics in Supercritical Pressure Water , 2009 .

[9]  S. Orszag,et al.  Renormalization group analysis of turbulence. I. Basic theory , 1986, Physical review letters.

[10]  T. Fujii,et al.  Forced convective heat transfer to supercritical water flowing in tubes , 1972 .

[11]  Masud Behnia,et al.  Prediction of heat transfer in an axisymmetric turbulent jet impinging on a flat plate , 1998 .

[12]  A. M. Shehata,et al.  Temperature, velocity and mean turbulence structure in strongly heated internal gas flows: Comparison of numerical predictions with data , 2002 .

[13]  F. Menter.  Improved two-equation k-omega turbulence models for aerodynamic flows , 1992 .

[14]  S. Orszag,et al.  Renormalization group analysis of turbulence. I. Basic theory , 1986 .

[15]  S. Koshizuka,et al.  Numerical analysis of deterioration phenomena in heat transfer to supercritical water , 1995 .

[16]  M. Carelli.  Turbulent Forced Convection in Channels and Bundles , 1981 .

[17]  U. S. Doe.  A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems , 2002 .

[18]  Shuisheng He,et al.  Assessment of performance of turbulence models in predicting supercritical pressure heat transfer in a vertical tube , 2008 .

[19]  Igor Pioro.  Heat-Transfer at Supercritical Pressures , 2010 .

[20]  Timothy Abram,et al.  A Technology Roadmap for Generation-IV Nuclear Energy Systems, USDOE/GIF-002-00 , 2002 .

[21]  Ridha Abid,et al.  Evaluation of two-equation turbulence models for predicting transitional flows , 1993 .

[22]  Shuisheng He,et al.  A computational study of convective heat transfer to carbon dioxide at a pressure just above the critical value , 2008 .

[23]  Ken-ichi Abe,et al.  A new turbulence model for predicting fluid flow and heat transfer in separating and reattaching flows—I. Flow field calculations , 1995 .

[24]  Walter Ambrosini,et al.  Prediction of turbulent convective heat transfer to a fluid at supercritical pressure in square and triangular channels , 2008 .