Heat Transfer Test in a Vertical Tube Using CO2 at Supercritical Pressures

Abstract

Heat transfer test facility, SPHINX (Supercritical Pressure Heat Transfer Investigation for NeXt Generation), was constructed at KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) for an investigation of the thermal-hydraulic behaviors of supercritical CO2 at the various geometries of the test section. The test data will be used for the reactor core design of the SCWR (SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactor). As a working fluid, CO2 was selected to make use of the low critical pressure and temperature of CO2 compared with water. An experimental study was carried out in the SPHINX to investigate the characteristics of heat transfer and pressure drop at a vertical single tube with an inside diameter of 4.4mm in case of an upward flow of supercritical CO2. The heat and mass fluxes were varied at a given pressure. The mass flux was in the range of 400~1;200 kg/m2 s and the heat flux was chosen up to 150 kW/m2. The selected pressures were 7.75, 8.12, and 8.85 MPa. A heat transfer deterioration occurred at the lower mass fluxes. The experimental heat transfer coefficients were compared with the ones predicted by several existing correlations. The standard deviation was about 20% for each correlation and an apparent discrepancy was not found among the correlations. The major components of the pressure drop were a gravitational pressure drop and a frictional pressure drop. The frictional pressure drop increases as the mass flux and heat flux increase.