Heat Transfer Enhancement of Supercritical Nitrogen Flowing Downward in a Small Vertical Tube: Evaluation of System Parameter Effects

In this paper, the heat transfer enhancement (HTE) of supercritical nitrogen flowing downward in a vertical small tube (diameter 2 mm) is studied using the commercial software CFX of Ansys16.1, to provide theoretical guidance on the design of high-performance heat transfer systems. An effective numerical simulation method, which employs the SSG Reynolds stress model with enhanced wall treatment, is applied to study the heat transfer of supercritical nitrogen under typical working conditions. The objective is to evaluate the effect of the main parameters taking into account the buoyancy and flow acceleration effects. Simulation results are compared with results calculated from three well-known empirical correlations and the applicability of empirical correlation is discussed in detail. It is discovered that the Watts and Chou correlation accurately fits the simulation results of supercritical nitrogen and the Dittus-Boelter and Jackson correlations can only be used for high-pressure conditions. The HTE of supercritical nitrogen is closely related to the laminar sub-layer and buffer layer of a boundary layer. The buoyancy effect on the HTE should be considered at low mass flux conditions, and thermal acceleration can be completely ignored for the cases studied. The special HTE featured by the increment in heat transfer coefficient with increasing heat flux is discovered at low pressure, and simulation results proved that this HTE is caused by the combined actions of buoyancy as well as significant variations in specific heat and viscosity.