Numerical investigation of upward supercritical water flow with Joule heating effect

By using Joule's Law, resistivity equation, Piecewise Cubic Hermite Interpolating Polynomial (PCHIP) functions, and resistivity-temperature correlation established based on the available experimental data, Joule heating heat flux profiles of upward supercritical water heat transfer in the annular tube are modelled and applied as the boundary condition. The calculated wall temperature result is compared to the Razumovskiy et al. experiment dataset. It is discovered that by using the PCHIP-modelled Joule heating profiles, the estimated wall temperature for both the Normal Heat Transfer (NHT) and Deteriorated Heat Transfer (DHT) regimes is comparable to the experiment in terms of trend and magnitude. However, by using the conventional constant heat flux profiles, the upstream and downstream wall temperatures are overestimated and underestimated respectively. This study demonstrated that CFD can adequately replicate experimental heat flux conditions, hence improving CFD estimates of supercritical heat transfer, particularly for the DHT, which has a substantial heat flux variation. With this fine imitation of the Joule heating heat flux, the critical DHT regime can be more accurately predicted. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd