Thermal-hydraulic performance of a PCHE with sodium and sCO_2 as working fluids

摘要

The Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) is one of the most attractive options for heat exchanger in compact facilities due to the high area concentration and superior heat transfer efficiency. A PCHE with sodium and supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO(2)) as working media is used as the intermediate heat exchangers in sodium-cooled fast reactor to reduce facility size and mitigate the consequences of sodium-water reaction by replacing steam with sCO(2). The thermal-hydraulic performance of PCHE was analyzed by CFD with SST k-omega and Abid low Reynolds k-epsilon turbulence models for sCO(2) and sodium domains, respectively. Besides, a segregated coupling strategy for the conjugate heat transfer was proposed based on the CORBA interface. The overall and localized heat transfer coefficient and friction factor were obtained and compared with empirical correlations. The mass flux and inlet temperature have significant impacts on the local thermal and hydraulic characteristics. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.