Numerical Investigation of Heat Transfer Characteristics of scCO₂ Flowing in a Vertically-Upward Tube with High Mass Flux

In this work, the heat transfer characteristics of supercritical pressure CO₂ in vertical heating tube with 10 mm inner diameter under high mass flux were investigated by using an SST k-ω turbulent model. The influences of inlet temperature, heat flux, mass flux, buoyancy and flow acceleration on the heat transfer of supercritical pressure CO₂ were discussed. Our results show that the buoyancy and flow acceleration effect based on single phase fluid assumption fail to explain the current simulation results. Here, supercritical pseudo-boiling theory is introduced to deal with heat transfer of scCO₂. scCO₂ is treated to have a heterogeneous structure consisting of vapor-like fluid and liquid-like fluid. A physical model of scCO₂ heat transfer in vertical heating tube was established containing a gas-like layer near the wall and a liquid-like fluid layer. Detailed distribution of thermophysical properties and turbulence in radial direction show that scCO₂ heat transfer is greatly affected by the thickness of gas-like film, thermal properties of gas-like film and turbulent kinetic energy in the near-wall region. Buoyancy parameters Bu < 10^-5, Bu* < 5.6 × 10^-7 and flow acceleration parameter K < 3 × 10^-6 in this paper, which indicate that buoyancy effect and flow acceleration effect has no influence on heat transfer of scCO₂ under high mass fluxes. This work successfully explains the heat transfer mechanism of supercritical fluid under high mass flux.