• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.158-165
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• 2008

The carbon dioxide properties change sharply near the critical or pseudo-critical point in the heat transfer processes. The reduction in turbulent, convective heat transfer parameters observed in some supercritical data and in experiments with common gases can be due to property variation, acceleration, buoyancy or combinations of these phenomena, depending on the conditions of the applications. In this study, the measurement for the secondary flow driven by buoyancy was carried out on the supercritical carbon dioxide turbulent flows in the different boundary condition with the constant mass flow rate. The available measuring techniques were used to clarify the behaviour of any supercritical fluid. Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) and a special device was used to measure the secondary velocity and turbulent characteristics of the supercritical flows.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.353-358
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• 2005

The heat transfer and pressure drop of supercritical $CO_2$ cooled in a helically coiled tube was investigated experimentally. The experiments were conducted without oil in the refrigerant loop. The experimental apparatus of the refrigerant loop consist of receiver, a variable speed pump, a mass flowmeter, a pre-heater, a gas cooler(test section) and an isothermal tank. The test section is a helically coiled tube in tube counter flow heat exchanger with $CO_2$ flowed inside the inner tube and coolant( water) flowed along the outside annular passage, It was made of it copper tube with the inner diameter of 4.55[mm]. the outer diameter of 6.35 [mm] and length of 10000 [mm]. The refrigerant mass fluxes were $200^{\sim}600$ [kg/m2s] and the inlet pressure of gas cooler varied from 7.5 [MPa] to 10.0 [MPa]. The main results are summarized as follows : The heat transfer coefficient of supercritical $CO_2$ increases, as the cooling pressure of gas cooler decreases. And the heat transfer coefficient increases with the increase of the refrigerant mass flux. The pressure drop decreases in increase of the gas cooler pressure and increases with increase the refrigerant mass flux.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.23-31
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• 2011

At supercritical pressure, the physical properties of fluid change substantially and the heat transfer at a temperature similar to the critical or pseudo-critical temperature improves considerably; however, the heat transfer may deteriorate due to a sudden increase in the wall temperature at a certain condition of a mass and heat flux. In this study, the heat transfer rates in $CO_2$ flowing vertically upward and downward in a circular tube with a diameter of 4.57 mm under various conditions were calculated by measuring the temperature of the outer wall of the tube. The published heat transfer correlations were analyzed by comparing their prediction values with 7,250 experimental data. By introducing a buoyancy parameter, a heat transfer correlation, which could be applied only to a normal heat transfer regime, was extended such that it can be applied to regime of heat transfer deterioration. The published criteria for heat transfer deterioration were evaluated against the conditions obtained from the experiment in this study.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.403-414
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• 2004

An experimental study of heat transfer characteristics near the critical pressure has been performed with an internally-heated vertical annular channel cooled by R-134a fluid. Two series of tests have been completed: (a) steady-state critical heat flux (CHF) tests, and (b) heat transfer tests for pressure reduction transients through the critical pressure. In the present experimental range, the steady-state CHF decreases with increase of the system pressure for fixed inlet mass flux and subcooling. The CHF falls sharply at about 3.8 MPa and shows a trend towards converging to zero as the pressure approaches the critical point of 4.059 MPa. The CHF phenomenon near the critical pressure does not lead to an abrupt temperature rise of the heated wall, because the CHF occurs at remarkably low power levels. In the pressure reduction transients, as soon as the pressure passes below the critical pressure from the supercritical pressure, the wall temperatures rise rapidly up to very high values due to the departure from nucleate boiling. The wall temperature reaches a maximum at the saturation point of the outlet temperature, and then tends to decrease gradually.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.737-744
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• 2016

The printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is regarded as a promising candidate for advanced heat exchangers for the next-generation supercritical $CO_2$ power generation owing to its high compactness and rigid structure. In this study, an innovative type of PCHE, in which the channel sizes for the heat source fluid and heat sink fluid are different, is considered for analysis. The thermal performance of the PCHE, with supercritical $CO_2$ as the working fluid, is numerically analyzed. The results have shown that the thermal performance of the PCHE decreases monotonically when the channel size of either the heat source channel or the heat sink channel, because of the decreased flow velocity. On the other hand, the thermal performance of the PCHE is found to be almost independent of the spacing between the channels. In addition, it was found that the channel cross sectional shape has little effect on the thermal performance when the hydraulic diameter of the channel remains constant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.1786-1795
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• 2021

Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) is a widely used heat exchanger in the supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) Brayton cycle because it can work under high temperature and pressure, and has been a hot topic in Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) projects for use as recuperators and condensers. Most previous studies focused on channel structures or shapes. However, no clear advancement has so far been seen in the allover size of the PCHE. In this paper, we proposed an optimal size of the PCHE with a fixed volume. Two boundary conditions of PCHE were simulated, respectively. When the volume of PCHE was fixed, the heat transfer rate and pressure loss were picked as the optimization objectives. The Pareto front was obtained by the Multi-objective optimization procedure. We got the optimized number of PCHE channels under two different boundary conditions from the Pareto front. The comprehensive performance can be increased by 5.3% while holding in the same volume. The numerical results from this study can be used to improve the design of PCHE with straight channels.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.607-618
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• 2014

An experimental investigation of turbulent heat transfer during the vertical upward flow of supercritical $CO_2$ was conducted in a circular tube with inner diameter of 4.5 mm. The experiments were conducted at bulk fluid temperatures ranging from 29 to $115^{\circ}C$, pressures from 74.6 to 102.6 bar, local wall heat fluxes from 38 to $234kW/m^2$, and mass fluxes from 208 to $874kg/m^2s$. At moderate wall heat and low mass fluxes, the wall temperature had a noticeable peak value. For observing the buoyancy and flow acceleration effects on heat transfer, the ratios of Nusselt numbers from the experimental data and a reference correlation were compared with the $Bo^*$ and $q^+$ distributions. The flow acceleration parameter $q^+$ appropriately represented the heat transfer phenomena in the experiments. A new heat transfer correlation for the vertical upward flow of the supercritical pressure fluid was developed, and was found to agree with the experimental data with an error margin of ${\pm}30%$.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.821-826
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• 2009

Due to environmental concerns $CO_2$ has been reintroduced as a potential candidate to replace HFCs in refrigeration systems. Oils are always required in a vapor-compression cycle, and thus actual working fluid in the system is $CO_2$-oil mixtures even though the oil concentrations are low at the heat exchangers and the expansion device. The cooling heat transfer coefficients for $CO_2$-oil mixtures under supercritical condition are required to designing of the gas cooler in the $CO_2$ refrigeration system properly. In the present study, the gas cooling heat transfer coefficients for $CO_2$-PEC9 was estimated by using the Gnileinski correlation, and the Kim and Ghajar model through the previous prediction models for the thermo-physical properties of $CO_2$-oil mixture. The Gnileinski correlation was used when the oil wt.% in the mixture is less than 1.0, and for the higher oil concentration the Kim and Ghajar model was applied. The estimated results agree with the experimental results conducted by the Dang et al.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Marine Engineers Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.216-221
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• 2005

The heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop during gas cooling process of carbon dioxide in a helically coiled tube were investigated experimentally. The experiments were conducted without oil in the refrigerant loop. The main components of the refrigerant loop are a receiver, a variable speed pump, a mass flowmeter, a pre-heater, a gas cooler(test section) and an isothermal tank. The test section is a double pipe type heat exchanger with refrigerant flowing in the inner tube and water flowing in the annulus. It was made of a copper tube with the inner diameter of 4.85 [mm], the outer diameter of 6.35 [mm] and length of 10000 [mm]. The refrigerant mass fluxes were 200${\sim}$600 [kg/$m^2$s] and the average pressure varied from 7.5 [MPa] to 10.0 [MPa]. The main results were summarized as follows: The heat transfer coefficient of supercritical $CO_2$ increases, as the cooling pressure of gas cooler decreases. And the heat transfer coefficient increases with the increase of the refrigerant mass flux. The pressure drop decreases in increase of the gas cooler pressure and increases with increase the refrigerant mass flux.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.44-48
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• 2007

The cooling heat transfer characteristics of supercritical $CO_2$ in a helical coil gas cooler on the change of coil diameters are experimentally investigated. The main components of the refrigerant loop are a receiver, a variable speed pump, a mass flow-meter, a pre-heater and a helical coil gas cooler (test section). The test sections are made of a copper tube which the inner diameter is 4.55 mm and the helical coil diameters are done of 26.75 mm and 41.35 mm. The mass fluxes of refrigerant are varied from 200 to 800 [$kg/m^2s$] and the inlet pressures of gas cooler are 7.5 to 10.0 (MPa). A gas cooler with helical coil diameter of 26.75 mm has larger heat transfer coefficient than that of 41.35 mm. Also, when compared with experimental data and published correlations avaliable, most of correlations are under-predicted, but Pitla published correlations avaliable, most of correlations are under-predicted, but Pitla et al.'s correlation shows a relatively good coincidence with the experimental data except the region of pseudo critical temperature.