{"title":"Novel designs and performance appraisal of non-uniformly heated annuli for heat transfer augmentation with supercritical carbon dioxide","authors":"Ashok Kumar Gond, Amaresh Dalal, Dipankar N. Basu","doi":"10.1016/j.anucene.2025.111393","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Deterioration of heat transfer and possible appearance of high temperatures are common concerns in supercritical flow channels, inspiring several innovating modifications in traditional tubes. Despite the relevance of annular geometry and rod bundles in high-power applications, similar efforts are quite rare in configurations beyond the conventional channels. Present study aims at addressing this research gap by proposing and analyzing two novel designs of supercritical flow channel with variable flow areas. Annular channels with continually increasing or decreasing heater diameter within a shell, accordingly allowing axial variation in heat flux based on the local thermal conditions, facilitate converging or diverging flow paths. Five different taper angles are contemplated for either of the geometries, and numerical simulations are performed to envisage their relative performances during energy addition with supercritical carbon dioxide as the working medium. Both the designs are able to demonstrate marked improvements in overall thermalhydraulic response, with the converging duct being identified as the more preferable choice. Local heat transfer coefficient at the channel exit can be as much as 126% greater for a converging channel compared to a plain annular one, without any significant rise in pressure losses. A converging channel is also able to maintain lower temperature levels throughout the flow path, and the effects are more prominent with greater tapering. Diverging channel also records considerable gain in heat transfer, but may experience higher local temperatures and augmented pressure losses. Buoyancy effect is found to be dominant within short entrance region, while flow acceleration governs the extent of interactions in later segments. Converging duct is able to sustain temperature close to pseudocritical value within the buffer region, which can be a primary reason for its superiority. The disparity between both configurations are less significant at lower flow rates and higher powers, and the use of diverging channel can be recommended only for large power-to-flow-rate ratios, which can limit temperature ranges better than converging channel only for such specific cases.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8006,"journal":{"name":"Annals of Nuclear Energy","volume":"218 ","pages":"Article 111393"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annals of Nuclear Energy","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306454925002105","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"NUCLEAR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Deterioration of heat transfer and possible appearance of high temperatures are common concerns in supercritical flow channels, inspiring several innovating modifications in traditional tubes. Despite the relevance of annular geometry and rod bundles in high-power applications, similar efforts are quite rare in configurations beyond the conventional channels. Present study aims at addressing this research gap by proposing and analyzing two novel designs of supercritical flow channel with variable flow areas. Annular channels with continually increasing or decreasing heater diameter within a shell, accordingly allowing axial variation in heat flux based on the local thermal conditions, facilitate converging or diverging flow paths. Five different taper angles are contemplated for either of the geometries, and numerical simulations are performed to envisage their relative performances during energy addition with supercritical carbon dioxide as the working medium. Both the designs are able to demonstrate marked improvements in overall thermalhydraulic response, with the converging duct being identified as the more preferable choice. Local heat transfer coefficient at the channel exit can be as much as 126% greater for a converging channel compared to a plain annular one, without any significant rise in pressure losses. A converging channel is also able to maintain lower temperature levels throughout the flow path, and the effects are more prominent with greater tapering. Diverging channel also records considerable gain in heat transfer, but may experience higher local temperatures and augmented pressure losses. Buoyancy effect is found to be dominant within short entrance region, while flow acceleration governs the extent of interactions in later segments. Converging duct is able to sustain temperature close to pseudocritical value within the buffer region, which can be a primary reason for its superiority. The disparity between both configurations are less significant at lower flow rates and higher powers, and the use of diverging channel can be recommended only for large power-to-flow-rate ratios, which can limit temperature ranges better than converging channel only for such specific cases.
期刊介绍:
Annals of Nuclear Energy provides an international medium for the communication of original research, ideas and developments in all areas of the field of nuclear energy science and technology. Its scope embraces nuclear fuel reserves, fuel cycles and cost, materials, processing, system and component technology (fission only), design and optimization, direct conversion of nuclear energy sources, environmental control, reactor physics, heat transfer and fluid dynamics, structural analysis, fuel management, future developments, nuclear fuel and safety, nuclear aerosol, neutron physics, computer technology (both software and hardware), risk assessment, radioactive waste disposal and reactor thermal hydraulics. Papers submitted to Annals need to demonstrate a clear link to nuclear power generation/nuclear engineering. Papers which deal with pure nuclear physics, pure health physics, imaging, or attenuation and shielding properties of concretes and various geological materials are not within the scope of the journal. Also, papers that deal with policy or economics are not within the scope of the journal.