Experimental Investigation to the Heat
Transfer Characteristics of Water in Vertical Pipes Under Supercritical Pressure
Xu Feng,Guo Liejin,Mao Yufei,Jiang Xian'en
(State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University,
Xi'an 710049, China)
Abstract: Heat transfer characteristics of supercritical water in a vertical upflow
tube with full-circumferential heating are investigated experimentally. The effects of
mass flow, heat flux, and pressure on the heat transfer are analyzed via the experimental
data in detail. Because of the abrupt variation of the thermophysical properties under
supercritical pressure, heat transfer enhancement phenomenon is observed when the fluid
bulk temperature approaches the pseudo-critical temperature. With increasing of mass flow
and pressure, and with decreasing of heat flux, heat transfer is enhanced obviously. By
curve-fitting of the experimental data, an empirical correlation for forced convection
heat transfer of supercritical water is obtained with average relative error of 11.8%.
Keywords: supercritical pressure; pseudo-critical temperature; empirical correlation