Title: Numerical simulation and comparison of turbulent heat transfer in supercritical and subcritical water

Authors: X.Y. Xu; M. Zeng; H.B. Zhu; Q.W. Wang; X. Yan

Addresses: Key Laboratory of Thermal Fluid Science and Engineering, MOE, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China ' Key Laboratory of Thermal Fluid Science and Engineering, MOE, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China ' Key Laboratory of Thermal Fluid Science and Engineering, MOE, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China ' Key Laboratory of Thermal Fluid Science and Engineering, MOE, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China ' CNNC Key Laboratory on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics Technology, Chengdu, 610041, China

Abstract: In this study, the heat transfer of supercritical water in uniformly heated vertical tube is numerically investigated with three different turbulence models, i.e., the renormalisation group (RNG) k-ε model, the shear stress transport (SST) k-ω model and the Reynolds stress model (RSM). In order to find suitable turbulence models for engineering applications, for example, the supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR), the results are compared with experimental results by Yamagata et al. (1972) firstly. It has been found that, as the physical properties of supercritical water change rapidly with temperature in pseudo-critical region, these turbulence models, which are simplified, based on isotropic flow and constant physical properties, do not agree well with the experimental results, and even fail in some cases. The numerical results of RSM are also not good enough as expected near critical point. To further explore the flow and heat transfer mechanism in supercritical water, sub-cooled nucleate boiling under subcritical pressure is also numerically investigated in order to find the similarities and differences with those under supercritical pressure.

Keywords: supercritical water; subcritical water; water-cooled reactors; turbulence modelling; heat transfer enhancement; numerical simulation; fluid flow; nucleate boiling.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2013.053655

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2013 Vol.13 No.3/4, pp.141 - 151

Published online: 31 Oct 2013 *

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