Heat Transfer to Supercritical Water (Liquid-Like State) Flowing in a Short Vertical Bare Tube With Upward Flow

Author(s):  
A. Zvorykin ◽  
M. Mahdi ◽  
R. Popov ◽  
K. Barati Far ◽  
I. Pioro

Current Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) equipped with water-cooled reactors (the vast majority of all NPPs) have relatively low thermal efficiencies within the range of 30–36% compared to those of modern advanced thermal power plants (SuperCritical Pressure (SCP) coal-fired — up to 55% thermal efficiency and combined cycle — up to 62%). Therefore, next generation reactors / NPPs should have higher thermal efficiencies close to those of current thermal power plants. Around 60 years ago thermal-power industry has moved from subcritical pressures to SCPs with the major objective to increase thermal efficiency. Based on this proven in power industry experience it was proposed to design SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs), which are one of the six Generation-IV nuclear-reactor concepts under development in selected countries. These days, there are discussions on developing even Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) of SCPs. In spite of a large number of experiments in long bare tubes (pipes) cooled with SCW, developing SCWR concepts requires experimental data in bundle geometries cooled with SCW, which are usually shorter and will have smaller diameters. However, such experiments are extremely complicated and expensive plus each bundle geometry will have a unique Heat-Transfer (HT) characteristics due to various bundle designs. Therefore, as a preliminary and a universal approach — experiments in bare tube of shorter heated lengths and of smaller diameters to match heated lengths and hydraulic-equivalent diameters of fuel bundles are required. Current paper provides experimental data obtained in a short (0.6 m) vertical bare tube of a small diameter (6.28 mm) cooled with upward flow of SCW. Analysis of this dataset is also included. Main emphasis of this research is on liquid-like cooling within the possible conditions of future SCWRs and SCW SMRs. Two HT regimes are encountered at these conditions: 1) Normal HT (NHT) and 2) Deteriorated HT (DHT). Conditions at which the DHT regime appeared are discussed.

Author(s):  
Amjad Farah ◽  
Krysten King ◽  
Sahil Gupta ◽  
Sarah Mokry ◽  
Wargha Peiman ◽  
...  

This paper presents an extensive study of heat-transfer correlations applicable to supercritical-water flow in vertical bare tubes. A comprehensive dataset was collected from 33 papers by 27 authors, including more than 125 graphs and wide ranges of parameters. The parameters ranges were as follows: pressures 22.5–34.5 MPa, inlet temperatures 85–350°C, mass fluxes 250–3400 kg/m2s, heat fluxes 75–5,400 kW/m2), tube heated lengths 0.6–27.4 m, and tube inside diameters 2–36 mm. This combined dataset was then investigated and analyzed. Heat Transfer Coefficients (HTCs) and wall temperatures were calculated using various existing correlations and compared to the corresponding experimental results. Three correlations were used in this comparison: Bishop et al., Mokry et al. and modified Swenson et al. The main objective of this study was to select the best supercritical-water bare-tube correlation for HTC calculations in: 1) fuel bundles of SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs) as a preliminary and conservative approach; 2) heat exchangers in case of indirect-cycle SCW Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs); and 3) heat exchangers in case of hydrogen co-generation at SCW NPPs from SCW side. From the beginning, all these three correlations were compared to the Kirillov et al. vertical bare-tube dataset. However, this dataset has a limited range of operating conditions in terms of a pressure (only one pressure value of 24 MPa) and one inside diameter (only 10 mm). Therefore, these correlations were compared with other datasets, which have a much wider range of operating conditions. The comparison showed that in most cases, the Bishop et al. correlation deviates significantly from the experimental data within the pseudocritical region and actually, underestimates the temperature at most times. On the other hand, the Mokry et al. and modified Swenson et al. correlations showed a relatively better fit within the most operating conditions. In general, the modified Swenson et al. correlation showed slightly better fit with the experimental data than other two correlations.


Author(s):  
Alexey Dragunov ◽  
Eugene Saltanov ◽  
Igor Pioro ◽  
Pavel Kirillov ◽  
Romney Duffey

It is well known that the electrical-power generation is the key factor for advances in any other industries, agriculture and level of living. In general, electrical energy can be generated by: 1) non-renewable-energy sources such as coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear; and 2) renewable-energy sources such as hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and marine. However, the main sources for electrical-energy generation are: 1) thermal - primary coal and secondary natural gas; 2) “large” hydro and 3) nuclear. The rest of the energy sources might have visible impact just in some countries. Modern advanced thermal power plants have reached very high thermal efficiencies (55–62%). In spite of that they are still the largest emitters of carbon dioxide into atmosphere. Due to that, reliable non-fossil-fuel energy generation, such as nuclear power, becomes more and more attractive. However, current Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) are way behind by thermal efficiency (30–42%) compared to that of advanced thermal power plants. Therefore, it is important to consider various ways to enhance thermal efficiency of NPPs. The paper presents comparison of thermodynamic cycles and layouts of modern NPPs and discusses ways to improve their thermal efficiencies.


Author(s):  
Igor L. Pioro

Supercritical Fluids (SCFs) have unique thermophyscial properties and heat-transfer characteristics, which make them very attractive for use in power industry. In this chapter, specifics of thermophysical properties and heat transfer of SCFs such as water, carbon dioxide, and helium are considered and discussed. Also, particularities of heat transfer at Supercritical Pressures (SCPs) are presented, and the most accurate heat-transfer correlations are listed. Supercritical Water (SCW) is widely used as the working fluid in the SCP Rankine “steam”-turbine cycle in fossil-fuel thermal power plants. This increase in thermal efficiency is possible by application of high-temperature reactors and power cycles. Currently, six concepts of Generation-IV reactors are being developed, with coolant outlet temperatures of 500°C~1000°C. SCFs will be used as coolants (helium in GFRs and VHTRs, and SCW in SCWRs) and/or working fluids in power cycles (helium, mixture of nitrogen (80%) and helium (20%), nitrogen and carbon dioxide in Brayton gas-turbine cycles, and SCW/“steam” in Rankine cycle).


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Calderón ◽  
Camila Barreneche ◽  
Anabel Palacios ◽  
Mercè Segarra ◽  
Cristina Prieto ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015.23 (0) ◽  
pp. _ICONE23-1-_ICONE23-1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Agranat ◽  
Michael Malin ◽  
Igor Pioro ◽  
Rand Abdullah ◽  
Valery A. Perminov

Author(s):  
Wafaa Karaki ◽  
Peiwen Li ◽  
Jon Van Lew ◽  
M. M. Valmiki ◽  
Cholik Chan ◽  
...  

This paper presents an experimental study and analysis of the heat transfer of energy charge and discharge in a packed-bed thermocline thermal storage tank for application in concentrated solar thermal power plants. Because the energy storage efficiency is a function of many parameters including fluid and solid properties, tank dimensions, packing dimensions, and time lengths of charge and discharge, this paper aims to provide experimental data and a proper approach of data reduction and presentation. To accomplish this goal, dimensionless governing equations of energy conservation in the heat transfer fluid and solid packed-bed material are derived. The obtained experimental data will provide a basis for validation of mathematical models in the future.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhendong Yang ◽  
Qincheng Bi ◽  
Han Wang ◽  
Gang Wu ◽  
Richa Hu

An experimental study of heat transfer to supercritical water has been performed at Xi'an Jiaotong University with a vertical annular tube. The annular test sections were constructed with an annular gap of 2 mm and an internal heater of 8 mm outer diameter. Experimental parameter covered pressures of 23 and 25 MPa, mass fluxes of 700 and 1000 kg/m2s, and heat fluxes of 200–1000 kW/m2. Experimental data were acquired from downward flow and upward flow, respectively. There were differences of heat-transfer characteristics between the two flow directions. Compared to upward flow, the heat-transfer coefficient increased at downward flow. A strong effect of spacer on heat transfer is observed at locations downstream of the device in the annuli regardless of flow direction. The spacer effect impaired the buoyancy effect at low heat flux, but not for large heat flux. Complex of forced convection and mixed convection in supercritical water is due to various thermophysical properties and the gravity. The affected zone of the spacer effect depends on the flow conditions. The buoyancy effect was analyzed qualitatively in this study and the criterion Gr¯/Re2.7<10-5 for negligible heat-transfer impairment was discussed. Four correlations were compared with the experimental data; the Swenson correlation predicted nearly the experimental data but overpredicted slightly the heat-transfer coefficients.


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