Assessment of Performance of Turbulence Models of CFX in Predicting Supercritical Water Heat Transfer in a Vertical Tube

Author(s):  
Jie Li ◽  
Junchong Yu ◽  
Guangming Jiang ◽  
Jiyang Yu
Author(s):  
Adam H. Richards ◽  
Robert E. Spall

A two-equation k-ω model is used to model a strongly heated, low-Mach number gas flowing upward in a vertical tube. Heating causes significant property variation and thickening of the viscous sublayer, consequently a fully developed flow does not evolve. Two-equation turbulence models generally perform poorly under such conditions. Consequently, in the present work, a near-wall two-equation heat transfer model is utilized in conjunction with the k-ω model to improve heat transfer predictions.


Author(s):  
Chen-Ru Zhao ◽  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
Han-Liang Bo ◽  
Pei-Xue Jiang

Investigations and numerical modelling are performed on the heat transfer to CO2 at supercritical pressure under buoyancy affected conditions during heating in a vertical tube with inner diameter of 2 mm. Numerical modelling are carried out using several low Reynolds number (LRN) k-ε models, including the model due to Launder and Sharma (LS), Abe, Kondoh and Nagano (AKN), Myong and Kasagi (MK) models. The numerical results are compared with the corresponding experimental data and the predicted values using the semi-empirical correlation for convection heat transfer of supercritical fluids without deterioration. The abilities of various LRN models to predict the heat transfer to fluids at supercritical pressures under normal and buoyancy affected heat transfer conditions are evaluated. Detailed information related to the flow and turbulence is presented to get better understanding of the mechanism of the heat transfer deterioration due to buoyancy, as well as the different behavior of various LRN turbulence models in responding to the buoyancy effect, which gives clues in future model improvement and development to predict the buoyancy affected heat transfer more precisely and in a broader range of conditions as they come to be used to simulate the flow and heat transfer in various applications such as in the supercritical pressure water-cooled reactor (SCWR) and the supercritical pressure steam generator in the high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTR).


2014 ◽  
Vol 592-594 ◽  
pp. 1667-1671
Author(s):  
T. Vinoth ◽  
K. Karuppasamy ◽  
D. Santhosh Kumar ◽  
R. Dhanuskodi

In the present work, the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical pressure water are numerically investigated in an upward flow vertical smooth tube. The numerical simulations are carried out by using Ansys-Fluent solver. The objective of the present work is to investigate the effect of heat flux and mass flux on heat transfer characteristics in supercritical water. In order to perform numerical simulation, experimental data of Mokryet al.[2] is considered. Various simulations were carried out for the inlet parameters of temperature 350°C, pressure 240bar; heat flux values ranging from 190 to 884kW/m2and mass flux values ranging from 498 to 1499kg/m2s. Based on the available parameters of heat flux and mass flux, they are segregated as groups with heat flux to mass flux ratios of 0.39 and 0.67. According to computational data, the heat transfer enhancement and heat transfer deterioration phenomenon of supercritical water were analyzed and based on the comparison with experimental data; their occurrence and mechanism were addressed.


Author(s):  
Sarah Mokry ◽  
Sahil Gupta ◽  
Amjad Farah ◽  
Krysten King ◽  
Igor Pioro

In support of developing SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs), studies are currently being conducted for heat-transfer at supercritical conditions. This paper presents an analysis of heat-transfer to SuperCritical Water (SCW) flowing in bare vertical tubes as a first step towards thermohydraulic calculations in a fuel-channel. A large set of experimental data, obtained in Russia, was analyzed. Two updated heat-transfer correlations for forced convective heat transfer in the normal heat transfer regime to SCW flowing in a bare vertical tube were developed. It is expected that the next generation of water-cooled nuclear reactors will operate at supercritical pressures (∼25 MPa) with high coolant temperatures (350–625°C). Currently, there are no experimental datasets for heat transfer from power reactor fuel bundles to the fuel coolant (water) available in open literature. Therefore, for preliminary calculations, heat-transfer correlations obtained with bare tube data can be used as a conservative approach. The analyzed experimental dataset was obtained for SCW flowing upward in a 4-m-long vertical bare tube. The data was collected at pressures of about 24 MPa for several combinations of wall and bulk-fluid temperatures that were below, at, or above the pseudocritical temperature. The values for mass flux ranged from 200–1500 kg/m2s, for heat flux up to 1250 kW/m2 and inlet temperatures from 320–350°C. The Mokry et al. correlation was developed as a Dittus-Boelter-type correlation, with thermophysical properties taken at bulk-fluid temperatures. Alternatively, the Gupta et al. correlation was developed based on the Swenson et al. approach, where the majority of thermophysical properties are taken at the wall temperature. An analysis of the two updated heat-transfer correlations is presented in this paper. Both correlations demonstrated a good fit (±25% for Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) values and ±15% for calculated wall temperatures) for the analyzed dataset. Thus, these correlations can be used for preliminary HTC calculations in SCWR fuel bundles as a conservative approach, for SCW heat exchangers, for future comparisons with other independent datasets and for the verification of computer codes for SCWR core thermohydraulics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangfei Kong ◽  
Dongfeng Sun ◽  
Lingtong Gou ◽  
Siqi Wang ◽  
Nan Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract Turbulent Prandtl number (Prt) has a great impact on the performance of turbulence models in predicting heat transfer of supercritical fluids. Unrealistic treatment of Prt may lead to large deviations of the prediction results from experimental data under supercritical conditions. In this study, the effect of Prt on heat transfer of supercritical water was extensively studied by using shear stress transport (SST) k–ω turbulence model, and the results suggested that using the existing Prt models would lead to failures in predicting the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical water under deteriorated heat transfer (dht) conditions. A new variable Prt model was proposed with the Prt varied with pressure, turbulent viscosity ratio, and molecular Prandtl number. The new model was validated by comparing the numerical results with the corresponding experimental data, and it was found that the new variable Prt model exhibited better performance on reproducing the dht of supercritical water in vertical tubes than those of the existing Prt models.


Author(s):  
Bo Zhang ◽  
Jianqiang Shan ◽  
Jing Jiang

Supercritical Water Reactors (SCWRs) are essentially water reactors operating at pressure and temperature above critical point. The heat transfer coefficient is relative low when the bulk temperature is above the pseudo-critical point due to the properties of vapor-like fluid. To obtain better heat transfer characteristics, increasing the fluctuation using obstacles is the conventional method. Heat transfer characteristic in vertical tube with different obstacles is numerically investigated under supercritical condition. Numerical simulation is carried out with commercial CFD code Fluent 6.1 and adaptive grid. The results show that The RNG k-ε model with enhanced wall treatment can obtain a reliable result; the blockage ratio and the local temperature have large influence on the heat transfer enhancement. The influence region and decay trend of obstacles are also studied and compared with existing correlations.


Author(s):  
Dong Yang ◽  
Qixian Wu ◽  
Lin Chen ◽  
Igor Pioro

Abstract Thermal efficiency and safety of Generation-IV nuclear-power-reactor concept - Supercritical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR) depend on solid knowledge of specifics of SCW thermophysical properties and heat transfer within these conditions. As a preliminary, but conservative approach to uncover these specifics is analysis of experimental data obtained in bare tubes including numerical investigation. This paper presents the numerical investigation, based on computational fluid dynamics, of the heat-transfer characteristics of SCW flow in a 4-m long circular tube (ID = 10 mm). The flow and heat-transfer mechanism of SCW in the vertical tube under the influence of buoyancy and flow acceleration are analyzed. Results of numerical simulation predict the experimental data with reasonable accuracy. The results indicated that in the region of q/G > 0.4 kJ/kg, the wall temperature distribution tends to be non-linear, and heat transfer may deteriorate. When Tb < Tpc < Tw, internal wall temperature shows peaks, which corresponds to heat-transfer deterioration. Meanwhile the position, where the deterioration occurs is continuously moved forward to the inlet as the heat flux increases. Velocity changes near the wall show an M shape according to mass conservation for the density change.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document