Martin Niemann

Thermo-hydraulic flow in a sudden expansion

The paper deals with the turbulent flow of liquid metal directed upwards in a vertical channel featuring a backward-facing step. The vertical wall behind the step is heated at various rates thereby inducing forced and mixed convection. Due to the low Prandtl number of liquid metal flow a data basis for this technically relevant flow type did not exist so far. Here, DNS and LES results are presented to provide detailed information about the statistics of the turbulent motion, budgets of turbulent kinetic energy and other quantities. This information is then further used to develop suitable statistical turbulence models capable of properly covering this flow and similar ones, i.e. forced, mixed and free convection of liquid metals. Finally, the paper reports on the construction of an experiment conceived for exactly the same configuration as simulated, with the purpose of close cross validation between the different approaches.

Buoyancy Effects on Turbulent Heat Transfer Behind a Backward-Facing Step in Liquid Metal Flow

Heat transfer is one the most important technical applications in fluid mechanics. Heat transfer behind sudden changes of the cross section such as a backward-facing step flow is particularly important in many devices such as the in- and outflow of thermal storage containers, collectors of power conversion systems, as well as highly heat loaded surfaces like those in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, to name but a few examples.

Transition between free, mixed and forced convection

In this contribution, numerical methods are discussed to predict the heat transfer to liquid metal flowing in rectangular flow channels. A correct representation of the thermo-hydraulic behaviour is necessary, because these numerical methods are used to perform design and safety studies of components with rectangular channels. Hence, it must be proven that simulation results are an adequate representation of the real conditions. Up to now, the majority of simulations are related to forced convection of liquid metals flowing in circular pipes or rod bundle, because these geometries represent most of the components in process engineering (e.g. piping, heat exchanger). Open questions related to liquid metal heat transfer, among others, is the behaviour during the transition of the heat transfer regimes. Therefore, this contribution aims to provide useful information related to the transition from forced to mixed and free convection, with the focus on a rectangular flow channel. The assessment of the thermo-hydraulic behaviour under transitional heat transfer regimes is pursued by means of system code simulations, RANS CFD simulations, LES and DNS, and experimental investigations. Thereby, each of the results will compared to the others. The comparison of external experimental data, DNS data, RANS data and system code simulation results shows that the global heat transfer can be consistently represented for forced convection in rectangular flow channels by these means. Furthermore, LES data is in agreement with RANS CFD results for different Richardson numbers with respect to temperature and velocity distribution. The agreement of the simulation results among each other and the hopefully successful validation by means of experimental data will fosters the confidence in the predicting capabilities of numerical methods, which can be applied to engineering application.