Huixiong Li

An investigation on heat transfer to supercritical water in inclined upward smooth tubes

Within the range of pressures from 23 to 30 MPa, mass velocities from 600 to 1200 kg/(m2s), and heat fluxes from 200 to 600 kW/m2, experiments have been performed for an investigation on heat transfer to supercritical water in inclined upward smooth tubes with an inner diameter of 26 mm and an inclined angle of 20° from the horizon. The results indicated that heat transfer characteristics of supercritical water are not uniform along the circumference of the inclined tube. An increase in the mass velocity of the working fluid can decrease and even eliminate the non-uniformity. Properties of supercritical fluid acutely vary with the temperature near the pseudocritical point. While the ratio of the mass velocity to the heat flux exceeded 2.16 kg/(kWs), heat transfer enhancement occurred near the pseudocritical point; conversely, heat transfer deterioration occurred while the ratio of the mass velocity to the heat flux was lower than 2.16 kg/(kWs). As the pressure increased far from the critical pressure, the amount of deterioration decreased. Correlations of heat transfer coefficients of the forced-convection heat transfer on the top and bottom of the tube have been provided, and can be used to predict heat transfer coefficient of spirally water wall in supercritical boilers.

Numerical Simulation of Bubble Dynamics in a Uniform Electric Field by the Adaptive 3D-VOSET Method

This article presents a three-dimensional numerical simulation of the effect of a uniform electric field on the dynamics of bubbles in a viscous fluid. The two-phase interface is captured utilizing a coupled volume-of-fluid and level set (VOSET) method by solving the full Navier–Stokes equations coupled with electric field equations. To track the interface more accurately, the dynamically adaptive octree grids are used to refine the grids around the interface. The effects of different parameters such as the electric Bond number, the ratio of electrical permittivity, the gravitational Bond number, and the Reynolds number on the motion and deformation of the bubble are investigated. According to the computational results, it is found that the electric field has a significant influence on the bubble dynamic behavior. Increase of the electric Bond number or the ratio of electrical permittivity results in the larger deformation and rising velocity of the bubble. For a higher electric Bond number and the Reynolds number, separations of the tail of the bubble are observed. In this case, the jet above the bubble is strong enough to turn the spherical bubble to a toroidal shape.

Evaluation of the Heat Transfer Correlations for Supercritical Pressure Water in Vertical Tubes

A large number of studies have been carried out on the flow and heat transfer of supercritical pressure fluids in the past decades. However, there are still some uncertainties and deficiencies in the accurate prediction for supercritical fluid heat transfer coefficient due to the large and fast variations of fluids properties in the so-called pseudo-critical region. In this paper, 15 correlations were selected from the literature and were compared with each other to verify their capability in predicting heat transfer coefficient of supercritical pressure water in vertical tubes. Based on the comparison between the calculation results of the existing heat transfer correlations and the experimental data obtained from the open literature, it was found that the Swenson et al. correlation and the Hu correlation can reasonably predict the heat transfer coefficient of supercritical water in the pseudo-critical region. After evaluating these correlations, the authors conducted polynomial fitting for the collected experimental data and got a new correlation for heat transfer coefficient of water at supercritical pressures. The new correlation can fit well with the experimental data even in the neighborhood of pseudo-critical temperature.

Investigation of the effect of magnetic field on melting of solid gallium in a bottom-heated rectangular cavity using the lattice Boltzmann method

ABSTRACT A numerical study is presented for two-dimensional convection melting of solid gallium in a rectangular cavity. The bottom wall of the cavity is uniformly heated and a uniform magnetic field is applied separately in both horizontal and vertical directions. The lattice Boltzmann (LB) method considering the magnetic field force is employed to solve the governing equations. The effects of magnetic field on flow and heat transfer during melting are presented and discussed at Rayleigh number Ra = 1 × 105 and Hartmann number Ha = 0, 15, and 30. The results show that the magnetic field with an inclination angle has a significant impact on the flow and heat transfer in the melting process. For a small Hartmann number, similar melting characteristics are observed for both horizontally applied and vertically applied magnetic fields. For a high value of Hartmann number, it is found that in the earlier stage of melting process, the flow retardation effect caused by the horizontally applied magnetic field is less obvious than that caused by the vertically applied magnetic field. However, the opposite is true in the later stage.

Development of Supercritical Water Heat-Transfer Correlation for Vertically-Upward Internally-Ribbed Tubes

The investigation on the heat transfer characteristics for supercritical pressure water (SCW) is of value for the development of the supercritical water-cooled nuclear reactor (SCWR). As an important heat transfer enhancement element, heat transfer for SCW in internally-ribbed tubes was still not solved, though lots of experimental studies have been published and a great many heat transfer correlations were proposed.This paper presented an analysis of heat transfer in the internally-ribbed tubes, through comparing heat transfer correlations for SCW gained from different internally-ribbed tubes under the same operating condition. It was found that all existing heat transfer correlations reported could not been well applied for various internally-ribbed tubes with large deviation between prediction results and experimental values, because rib geometry had a great influence on heat transfer of internally-ribbed tubes. On the basis of experimental data collected from open literature for internally-ribbed tubes, a new general calculation correlation of heat transfer coefficient for SCW was developed for various internally-ribbed tubes by combining an optimized empirical correlation for vertically-upward smooth tubes and four dimensionless numbers of rib geometry.The results show that the calculated values of the new present correlation is in reasonable agreement with available experimental data collected. Moreover, the new correlation was verified well by experiment data of two new-type internally-ribbed tubes performed beyond the above experimental database.Copyright

Experimental Investigation on Flow Patterns and Frictional Pressure Drop of Downward Air-Water Two-Phase Flow in Vertical Pipes

A large amount of air need be transported into the reservoir in the deep stratum to supply oxygen to some microbes in Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR). Air-water two-phase flows downward along vertical pipeline during the air transportation. Base on the experiment data described in this paper, the characteristics of air-water two phase flow patterns were investigated. The flow pattern map of air-water two phase flows in the pipe with inner diameter of 65 mm was drawn, criterions of flow pattern transition were discussed, and the dynamic signals of the pressure and the differential pressure of the two phase flow were recorded to characterize the three basic flow regimes indirectly. The frictional pressure drop of downward flow in vertical pipe must not be disregarded contrast with upward two phase flow in the vertical pipe because the buoyancy must be overcame when the gas flows downward along pipe, and there would be a maximum value of frictional when the flow pattern translated from slug flow to churn flow.Copyright

Investigation on the mechanism of abnormal heat transfer of supercritical pressure water in vertically‐upward tubes in the large specific heat region

The heat transfer characteristics of water at supercritical pressures in a vertically‐upward internally‐ribbed tube are investigated experimentally to investigate the mechanism of abnormal heat transfer of supercritical pressure water in the so‐called large specific heat region. One kind optimized internally‐ribbed tube is used in this study. The tube is made of SA‐213T12 steel with an outer diameter of 31.8 mm and a wall thickness of 6 mm and the mean inside diameter of the tube is measured to be 17.63 mm. According to experimental data, the characteristics and mechanisms of the heat transfer enhancement and also the heat transfer deterioration of supercritical pressure water in the large specific heat region are discussed respectively. The heat transfer enhancement of the supercritical pressure water in the large specific heat region is believed to be a result of combined effect caused by the rapid variations of thermophysical properties of the supercritical pressure water in the large specific heat reg...

Development of Heat Transfer Correlation for Supercritical Water in Vertical Upward Tubes

ABSTRACT Supercritical water is widely used in many advanced single-phase thermosiphons due to its favorable heat and mass transfer characteristics and potentially high thermal efficiency. However, the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical water in the deterioration regime cannot be accurately predicted due to the absence of exact evaluation of the effect on steep variation in thermophysical properties near the pseudocritical point. The present paper focuses on the deterioration mode by analyzing the physical mechanism and constructing a new correlation. About 3,000 experimental data on supercritical water, including 40 deteriorated heat transfer cases from open literature, were collected. Quantitative assessment of heat transfer behavior was conducted based on existing test data and previous criteria gathered from extant literature. Based on experimental data evaluation and phenomenological analysis, an improved dimensionless correlation is proposed by introducing multi-dimensionless parameters, which can correct the deviation of heat transfer from its conventional behavior in the Dittus-Boelter equation. Comparisons of various heat transfer correlations with the selected test data show that the new correlation agrees better with the test data versus other correlations selected from the open literature.

Numerical Simulation of Two-Phase Flows Using 3D-VOSET Method on Dynamically Adaptive Octree Grids

In this paper, a coupled volume-of-fluid and level set (VOSET) method is developed to simulate the two-phase flows. To improve the calculation accuracy of two-phase flows and reduce the cost of computer resources, the dynamically adaptive octree grids are used to refine the grids near the interface. For the deformation of a sphere, the numbers of cells and the CPU time are analyzed. The number of cells for the adaptive grid system is less than 550000. To keep the same resolution, the number of cells for the uniform grid system would be 4096000. The CPU time for the adaptive grids is less than 300 min, while it is 650 min for the uniform grids. The results demonstrate that using the adaptive octree grids takes less storage and time to achieve almost the same accuracy as employing the relevant uniform grids. A static drop in equilibrium without gravity is numerically simulated, and the results show that this method can accurately calculate the interfacial force. A rising gas bubble and the coalescence of two bubbles are simulated, and the results are in good agreement with the previous results.Copyright

Visualization Investigation of Secondary Flow on Heat Transfer Deterioration in Horizontal Heat Tube

Mixed convection heat transfer in heated tubes has been studied extensively in the past decades, which is widely used in various industrial fields such as cooling of a nuclear reactor core. The secondary flow, which is induced by buoyancy force, has been found in previous research to have profound influence on the heat transfer difference on circumferential position and occurrence of heat transfer deterioration in horizontal heated channel. Therefore, understanding the secondary flow velocity field has important implications to prevent heat transfer deterioration and ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Numerical methods have been adopted in literature to analyze the complex interaction between secondary flow and heat transfer deterioration. However, to the knowledge of the author, experimental measurement of secondary flow in the radial cross-section of a horizontal tube does not exist.In this paper, a novel measurement method, which combines the transparent heating and PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) technology, has been adopted to experimentally investigate the secondary flow velocity field on the radial cross-section in a horizontal heated tube. The heat transfer deterioration mechanism is revealed through analysis of the distribution of secondary flow along circumference direction at low mass flow rates and high heat flux conditions. We found that the buoyancy force lead the hot fluid to rise along the tube wall from bottom to top. While the secondary flow is most intensive near the middle of the interface, the secondary velocities are high at the bottom of the cross-section, where the tube wall is well cooled by cold fluid descends from the central part of the cross-section. Near the top of the tube wall, the secondary velocities are very small and the thermal acceleration effect makes the fluid rise. As a result, the mixed convection of top and center part of cross-section is weak and heat is primarily transferred by conduction, which leads the occurrence of thermal stratification of fluid. Consequently, the thermal accumulation of fluid in the top leads to heat transfer deterioration. Moreover, thermal properties differences between Freon (FC-72) and water, especially the Prandtl number (Pr), make the occurrence of heat transfer deterioration much easier for FC-72 than water with same working conditions.Copyright