Semi-Analytical Prediction of Hydraulic Resistance and Heat Transfer for Pipe and Channel Flows of Water at Supercritical Pressure

摘要

Within the Generation IV International Forum the Supercritical Water Reactor is investigated. For its core design and safety analysis the efficient prediction of flow and heat transfer parameters such as the wall-shear stress and the heat-transfer coefficient for pipe and channel flows is needed. For circular pipe flows a numerical model based on the one-dimensional conservation equations of mass, momentum end energy in the radial direction is presented, referred to as a 'semi-analytical' method. An accurate, high-order numerical method is employed to evaluate previously derived analytical solutions of the governing equations. Flow turbulence is modeled using the algebraic approach of Prandtl/van-Karman, including a model for the buffer layer. The influence of wall roughness is taken into account by a new modified numerical damping function of the turbulence model. The thermo-hydraulic properties of water are implemented according to the international standard of 1997. This method has the potential to be used within a sub-channel analysis code and as wall-functions for CFD codes to predict the wall shear stress and the wall temperature.The present study presents a validation of the method with comparison of model results with experiments and multi-dimensional computational (CFD) studies in a wide range of flow parameters. The focus is laid on forced convection flows related to reactor design and near-design conditions. It is found, that the method can accurately predict the wall temperature even under deterioration conditions as they occur in the selected experiments (Yamagata el al. 1972 at 24.5 MPa, Ornatski et al. 1971 at 25.5 and Swenson et al. 1963 at 22.75 MPa). Comparison of the friction coefficient under high heat flux conditions including significant viscosity and density reductions near the wall with various correlations for the hydraulic resistance will be presented; the best agreement is achieve with the correlation of Pioro et al. 2004. It is concluded, that the semi-analytical prediction method is accurate and efficient for forced convection flows even at high heat fluxes. The wall-roughness height is identified as an important model parameter.