Effect of property variations on the mixing of laminar supercritical water streams in a T-junction

Abstract

The effect of variation of supercritical water properties with temperature and pressure on the mixing characteristics of streams having different temperatures in a T shaped channel is investigated numerically by considering steady, low Reynolds number flows with the assumption of negligible bouyancy effects. The Reynolds number of the cold stream in the range 0.1 to 100, inlet temperature of hot stream varying from 300 K to 800 K, the ratio of mass flow rate of cold stream to total mass flow rate in the range of 0.1 to 0.90 and the operating pressures from 25 MPa to 45 MPa at a cold fluid inlet temperature of 293.15 K are considered as parameters controlling the mixing of hot and cold streams. The effect of property variations on the outcome of the mixing is more important for low Reynolds numbers and hot fluid inlet temperatures above the pseudo-critical temperature and result in a non-uniform temperature distribution in the outlet section.