Investigation of the heat transfer enhancement and deterioration induced by vortex generators in low Prandtl number sodium-potassium alloy liquid

Abstract

Liquid metals, being characterized by low molecular viscosity and high molecular thermal conductivity, appear to be a stupendous choice for heat transfer fluids in deep-space nuclear reactors. Nevertheless, because of space nuclear reactor weight and volume constraints, the heat transfer capability of the heat exchanger must be substantially improved for a deeper space exploration mission. In this study, the influence of the vortex generator applied to the liquid metal was investigated to further promote the heat transfer capability of the liquid metal. And the thermo-fluid behaviors of the sodium-potassium alloy (NaK-78) are compared among the channel with the Body-Centered Cubic (BCC) lattice array, the rectangular ring rib array, and the Kagome lattice array under identical porosity. The numerical results indicate that the heat transfer deterioration phenomena occurred in the case of rectangular ring rib channel, which is a relatively rare occurrence in conventional fluids with the local Nu number even being lower than that of the smooth channel at the same location. Therefore, the rectangular ring rib should be carefully considered and evaluated when it is applied to heat transfer enhancement in NaK alloy fluid. The Kagome structure and the BCC structure could effectively promote the heat transfer performance of the NaK alloy fluid by means of the induced composite vortex system. In comparison to the smooth channel, the average Nu of the cases with the Kagome array and the BCC array yield 17.26–37.32% and 51.98–78.85% higher, respectively.