A brief review on convection heat transfer of fluids at supercritical pressures in tubes and the recent progress

The CO2 with superior thermo-physical properties has numerous applications in nuclear reactor, power plant, refrigeration and air conditioning systems as well as in many engineering and industrial applications. The complex phenomenon of thermal and hydrodynamic behaviour associated with supercritical CO2 is a continuing research topic for many researchers. The conventional correlations of turbulent forced convection heat transfer failed to predict the heat transfer and flow behaviour especially in the vicinity of the critical condition. The present paper presents a comprehensive review of heat transfer characteristics and correlations with supercritical CO2 employed under heating and cooling condition in horizontal channel or tube. An exhaustive review of implementation of supercritical CO2 used with horizontal and vertical orientation of tubes under turbulent flow condition and other operating parameters (inlet sCO2 pressure, mass flux, temperature, and heat flux) is also reported. In the present work, possible reasons for heat transfer deterioration under heating of supercritical CO2 are discussed. The characteristics of pressure drop, convective heat transfer behaviour, effect of buoyancy, the wall temperature distribution and finally the comparison among different correlations are reviewed extensively for supercritical CO2. The study of these correlations with their range of applicability provides a good insight for efficient thermal design and optimization of heat exchanger especially in thermal power plants.

A comprehensive review on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics and correlations with supercritical CO2 under heating and cooling applications

Supercritical “boiling” number, a new parameter to distinguish two regimes of carbon dioxide heat transfer in tubes

Improvement of buoyancy and acceleration parameters for forced and mixed convective heat transfer to supercritical fluids flowing in vertical tubes

A review on recent heat transfer studies to supercritical pressure water in channels

Forced and mixed convection heat transfer to supercritical CO2 vertically flowing in a uniformly-heated circular tube

Extensive experiments on heat transfer at a supercritical pressure to CO2 in tubes and annular channels have been performed. The geometries of the test sections include tubes of an internal diameter of 4.4 and 9 mm and an annular channel (8 × 10 mm). Based on the test results a set of correlations, which covers a deteriorated heat transfer regime as well as a normal heat transfer regime, was developed.Copyright © 2008 by ASME

Deog-Ji Kang

Papers

Forced and mixed convection heat transfer to supercritical CO2 vertically flowing in a uniformly-heated circular tube

Convective Heat Transfer to CO2 at a Supercritical Pressure Flowing Vertically Upward in Tubes and an Annulus Channel