International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

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International Journal of Thermal Sciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijts

A modified convective heat transfer model for heated pipe flow of

supercritical carbon dioxide
Sandeep Pandey, Eckart Laurien, Xu Chu*
Institute of Nuclear Technology and Energy Systems (IKE), University of Stuttgart, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) is a promising working fluid for heat transfer applications. But the
Received 23 August 2016 complex nature of heat transfer and fluid flow, especially in near critical region hinders the development
Received in revised form of heat transfer equipment. In this study, the two-layer model for heat transfer to supercritical fluids used
20 March 2017
in Ref. [29] is improved by inclusion of the buoyancy and acceleration effects. Results were then cali-
Accepted 21 March 2017
brated with direct numerical simulation (DNS) data for refinement and were validated with the available
experimental data for sCO2. The model is improved qualitatively in terms of capability to predict heat
transfer deterioration and quantitatively in terms of reduction in mean relative error. A parametric study
Keywords:
Supercritical pressure
is also performed to identify the effects of different variables such as mass flux, pipe diameter and inlet
sCO2 temperature on heat transfer. In the end, the need of further DNS and experiments pertaining to heating
Turbulent flow and cooling of sCO2 is briefly discussed.
Two layer model © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Heat transfer deterioration

1. Introduction lubricating oil from turbomachinery can cause a significant

The supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle operating at
550
C, has comparable efficiency with the helium Brayton cycle
which operates at 850
C. This makes sCO2 a well-suited alternative
for any nuclear power reactor which has core outlet temperature of
500
C or more [11]. sCO2 is also considered as a novel fluid for heat
pumps with a coefficient of performance (COP) of 4 and if heat
pumps were configured to provide space cooling in addition to hot
water then COP can be as high as 8 [12]. It was also observed that
solar collectors using sCO2 as a working fluid to collect the heat
have annually averaged efficiency of above 60%, which is higher
than that of the water-based solar collector [40]. Due to these
aforementioned advantages, sCO2 is being considered as a superior
working fluid over others. However, sCO2 suffers from some dis-
advantages as well. For example sCO2 has global warming potential
of 1 while water and ammonia seem to be more environmental-
friendly in terms of global warming with global warming poten-
tial of 0. Along with it, worn-out bearings in turbomachinery can
lead to leakage of sCO2 and in a closed environment without any
preventive measures, it can cause fatal outcomes. Also, mixing of
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sandeep.pandey@ike.uni-stuttgart.de (S. Pandey), laurien@
ike.uni-stuttgart.de (E. Laurien), xu.chu@itlr.uni-stuttgart.de (X. Chu).
reduction in heat transfer as reported by Kuang and Ohadi [17].
Many of these shortcomings can be controlled up to an acceptable
extent which promotes its use as a working fluid.
For all heat transfer applications, heat exchanger is an important
equipment which assists in cooling or heating of working fluids.
Compact heat exchangers (CHE), which are characterized by their
large surface area for heat transfer per unit volume, are an excellent
choice for sCO2. This will result in reduced space and weight, the
lesser rigidity of the structure required and lesser energy intensity
of heat exchanger. This ultimately leads to lower cost and improved
plant layout and process design which results in low fluid inventory
[34]. Printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is one of the popular
and widely used CHE. It consists of narrow fluid channels for both
hot and cold fluids. The narrow fluid channels of PCHE typically
have a diameter of 1e2 mm and resemble the thin tubes of an
equivalent hydraulic diameter.
While using sCO2 in PCHE, heat transfer is completely different
from subcritical conditions because of the drastic radial property
variation, acceleration, buoyancy or combination of these phe-
nomena [23]. Fig. 1a and b shows the variation of normalized
thermophysical properties for sCO2 at 7.75 MPa pressure (i.e. at 1.05
Pc ) [20], in near-critical region, small fluid temperature variations
will induce significant variation in thermophysical properties
which will result in a variation of the heat transfer coefficient. Heat
transfer coefficient (a) may enhance or deteriorate, which will

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2017.03.021
1290-0729/© 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
228 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

Nomenclature Nu Nusselt number, Nu ¼ alD

b
Re Reynolds number, Re ¼ GD m
mCp
Pr Prandtl number, Pr ¼ l
Symbols PrT turbulent Prandtl number, PrT ¼ anturb
turb
A arbitrary constant [s2/m2]
a thermal diffusivity [m2/s] Subscript
Cp isobaric specific heat [J/kg K] b bulk fluid
cv calibrated parameter for acceleration [] c critical
D internal diameter of pipe [m] cl center line
flow calibrated parameter for buoyancy [] cs conducting sub layer
G mass flux [kg/m2 s] i inlet
g acceleration due to gravity [m/s2] pc pseudocritical
i enthalpy [J/kg] ref references
Lh heated length [m] turb turbulent
P pressure [Pa] vs viscous sub layer
qw wall heat flux [W/m2] w wall
R pipe radius [m]
T temperature [K and
C] Superscript
u velocity [m/s] b wall unit based on bulk properties
ut shear velocity [m/s] w wall unit based on wall properties
y wall distance in radial direction [m] þ non-dimensional form
z stream-wise heated length [m]
a heat transfer coefficient [W/m2K] Acronyms
b thermal expansion coefficient [1/K] CFD computational fluid dynamics
k von-Karman constant [] CHE compact heat exchanger
l thermal conductivity [W/m K] COP coefficient of performance
m dynamic viscosity [Pa s] DNS direct numerical simulation
n kinematic viscosity [m2/s] MRE mean relative error
r density [kg/m3] MSE mean square error
tb buoyant shear stress [Pa] NIST national Institute of Standards and Technology
tw wall shear stress [Pa] REFPROP reference fluid thermodynamic and transport
tw;m modified shear stress [Pa]
RT
properties database
u Tref lðTÞdT [W/m] OpenFOAM open field operation and manipulation
PCHE printed circuit heat exchanger
Non-dimensional quantities PISO pressure implicit with splitting of operator
4qw mb bb
Kv acceleration parameter, Kv ¼ GDu m r Cpb
sCO2 supercritical carbon dioxide
b

affect the heat transfer between the PCHE's wall and bulk fluid
flowing inside it. There are many experimental evidence accessible
for heat transfer enhancement and deterioration depending upon
mass and heat flux in the supercritical range for different working
fluids in the pipe flow (e.g. Refs. [26,38]).
In the past, several researchers have developed heat transfer
correlations for sCO2 by modifying existing correlations to fit
experimental data [4,5,9,13,32]; but the lack of generality and ac-
curacy limits their use in PCHE. Also, correlations developed for
heating conditions don't fit well in cooling conditions because of
deceleration and buoyancy effects. Similarly, the upward and
downward direction of flow creates a distinction between each
other due to the buoyancy. In addition to it, abnormal heat transfer
phenomena like deterioration and enhancement cannot be
accounted by most of the correlations. Therefore, there is a strong
need for a correlation or model which is supported by an adequate
physical theory and increase the range of applicability.
To analyze the heat transfer at supercritical pressure, numerous
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies based upon turbulent
model are available but their reliability is limited for a specific case
[25,33,35]. Also, CFD studies including DNS generally require high-
performance computing resource which increases the overall cost
considerably. Additionally, an advanced level programming skill is
required. To mitigate these limitations a relatively simpler model is
desirable which uses limited computer resource and provide re-
sults within an acceptable time.
In the quest for a simpler and universal model to predict the
heat transfer, two layer model is a foremost alternative [18]. used
two layer model to develop implicit equations for water, based
upon numerical wall function. In his work, Laurien employed the
logarithmic law of the wall and variable properties to model the
heat transfer to supercritical water. But the agreement was poor
with the experimental data, therefore he introduced property ratio
to empirically fit the data. Later, when [30] tested it for sCO2, they
found poor agreement especially at higher heat flux where dete-
rioration took place. Therefore, they again provided a new value for
correction factor in terms of density ratio. Thus generality was not
achieved with two layer model using numerical wall function only.
Simultaneously McEligot and Laurien [24] investigated two
layer model based on the thermal resistance analogy for sCO2. They
have derived an explicit equation to calculate the convective heat
transfer coefficient while approximating the bulk temperature to
be the same as the center temperature. Later, Pandey and Laurien
[29] tested and validated it with experimental data for sCO2 and
supercritical R-22. It was able to account heat transfer deterioration
for both the fluids. But the relative error was in between ± 25% for
sCO2 and supercritical R-22, which might not be acceptable for the
actual design of PCHE.
 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238
Fig. 1. Variation of normalized thermophysical properties with temperature [20].
Recently, a hybrid model was presented by Ref. [19] which uses
both wall function and thermal resistance in two layer model. The
proposed model accounts for buoyancy and acceleration effects by
empirically fitting the data with DNS. As the target range of
diameter was 1e2.5 mm, and not a single fully descriptive exper-
imental data were available, so validation was not presented.
In the present study, this improved two layer model is used and
buoyancy effect is taken into account by an additional buoyant
shear stress. This analytical approach for accounting buoyancy in-
creases the reliability of the model. The effect of relaminarization
brought by flow acceleration is accounted by the empirical fitting of
presented model with DNS data. A detailed validation with exper-
imental data has also been presented. For a better understanding of
different variables, a parametric study is also carried out.
2. Two layer model
As per [1] Ludwig Prandtl is the pioneer of the two layer model
for constant properties in turbulent flow. Prandtl assumed that
turbulent flow in a pipe consists of two layers, namely (i) a laminar
sub-layer and (ii) a turbulent core layer, as shown in Fig. 2a. In
laminar sub-layer, only molecular transport is significant while in
229
Fig. 2. Two-layer model.
the turbulent core layer, turbulent transport plays a significant role
in momentum transfer. These two layers are distinguished by ve-
locity profiles and thickness of the viscous sub-layer is determined
by the intersection of the velocity profile of different region as
shown in Fig. 2b. In viscous sub-layer, uþ ¼ yþ is valid (blue colored
in Fig. 2b) while in turbulent core layer uþ is directly proportional
to the logarithmic of the distance from the wall (red colored in
Fig. 2b). Here superscript ‘þ’represents the non-dimensional form
as: uþ ¼ u=ut and yþ ¼ yun t . It is a well-established model for con-
stant properties and already been attempted by Ref. [31] for vari-
able properties.
For variable properties, the temperature difference across these
layers can be found out by the logarithmic law of the wall and/or
thermal resistance offered by different layers (refer [18] and [24] for
a detailed derivation). First, the temperature difference across the
turbulent core layer (DTturb ) is estimated while approximating the
center line temperature (Tcl ) and the bulk temperature (Tb ) and it is
calculated by utilizing the bulk shear velocity (utb ), wall heat flux
(qw ), bulk density (rb ), isobaric specific heat calculated at bulk
temperature (Cpb ), turbulent Prandtl number (PrT), von-Karman
constant (k), dimensionless radius (Rþb ), thickness of conducting
cs ), dynamic viscosity (m) and Prandtl number (Pr).
sub-layer (yþb
230 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

! The above-discussed equations are implemented in Ref. [21] by

PrT  þw
 qw using an iterative approach shown in Fig. 3 by initializing with a
DTturb ¼ Tcs  Tcl ¼ lnR  lnyþb (1)
k cs
utb rb Cpb constant property case. For the thermophysical properties, a look-
up table is created corresponding to NIST REFPROP [20].
Where, The model can predict the heat transfer deterioration corre-
sponding to experiment of [16] for sCO2 as well for supercritical R-
rffiffiffiffiffiffi
tw rRut yþ 22 corresponding to experiment of [26] (not shown here) but it
ut ¼ ; Rþ ¼ ; yþb
cs ¼
vs
; yþ
vs ¼ 11:8
r m 1
Pr3cs
shows shifted and exaggerated peak in the wall temperature
(correspondingly a valley in a). The possible reason for it is rela-
Temperature difference across conducting sub-layer (DTcs ) is minarization combined with buoyancy effects. The following sub-
determined by using the thermal resistance analogy. After inte- section briefly explains the effects and how they are accounted in
grating Fourier's law of conduction in the conducting sub-layer, the presented model.
temperature difference across it is given as:
2.1. Relaminarization
qw
DTcs ¼ (2)
acs
[37] firstly observed the conversion of turbulent flow into
Where heat transfer coefficient across conducting sub-layer (acs ) is laminar in his work of curved pipe. During heating of sCO2, fluid
determined by using properties evaluated at conducting sub-layer density decreases and it results in an increase in the fluid velocity.
(subscript ‘cs’) and wall (subscript ‘w’). This will accelerate the fluid and creates a condition similar to a
boundary layer subjected to a large favorable pressure gradient that
1 ðuw  ucs Þ will revert the turbulent flow to laminar [27]. This will influence the
acs ¼ heat transfer to sCO2 and it has to be accounted in the present
ycs ðTw  Tcs Þ
model to enhance the accuracy. It is well agreed that the thickness
of laminar sub-layer will increase due to relaminarization brought
ZT rffiffiffiffiffiffi
yvs;w yvs;w utw tw by acceleration and it will increase the thermal resistance thereby
u¼ lðTÞdT; ycs ¼ ; yþ
vs ¼ ; utw ¼
1
Prw
3 yw rw restricts the heat transfer between the wall and bulk fluid. There-
Tref fore, to account this, the thickness of viscous sub-layer is increased;
equation (11) is modified form of non-dimensional wall thickness.
Here; l represents the thermal conductivity, ycs is the thickness of Here the acceleration parameter (Kv) is used, originally introduced
conducting sub-layer and utw is shear velocity based upon wall by Ref. [22] while cv is the empirically fitted parameter and its value
temperature. The expression for the wall temperature ðTw Þ is given is empirically fitted in section 3. In the equation, b is the thermal
by: expansion coefficient and A is an arbitrary constant.

Tw ¼ Tcl þ DTturb þ DTcs (3) yþ

vs ¼ 11:8 þ cv Kv (11)
And the wall shear stress (tw ) is calculated as:
Where,
du
tw ¼ m  zm vs
u
(4)
dy y¼0 yvs
For velocity at the edge of viscous sub-layer (uvs ), the logarith-
mic law of the wall is used. The well known power law velocity
profile, u=umax ¼ ð1  r=RÞð1=nÞ was utilized. The exponent n is a
function of Reynolds Number, however, n ¼ 7 observed to be
applicable to a wide range of pipe flows and is a good approxima-
tion [15]. Relation between maximum velocity i.e. velocity at the
center (ucl ) and mean velocity (um ) is derived as follow:

ZR
2
um ¼ uðrÞrdr (5)
R2
0

ZR  r 7
1
2
um ¼ ucl 1  rdr (6)
R2 R
0

um
ucl ¼ (7)
0:8167
Then uvs is given as:

uvs ¼ ucl þ Duturb (9)

1 
Duturb ¼ lnRþb  lnyþb
cs utb (10)
k
Fig. 3. Iterative approach for solving equations.
 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238
4qw mb bb
Kv ¼ ; cv ¼ Au2m
GDum rb Cpb
2.2. Buoyancy
Due to density variations in the radial direction of flow, its ef-
fects cannot be neglected especially at high heat flux. The flow will
change from forced to mixed type, where natural convection plays
an important role. In the previous attempt of authors, buoyancy
was included by empirically fitting of the model with DNS data,
which considers the internal and external effects of buoyancy [19].
But, generality wasn't achieved, therefore a different analytical
approach is introduced in this study. To take buoyancy into account,
a buoyant shear stress is inserted in addition to wall shear stress.
This approach to include buoyancy effect by an extra shear stress
has already been used for drag reducing fluids by Ref. [36]. Equation
(12) shows the modified form of wall shear stress.
tw;m ¼ tw þ ðflow  tb Þ
The resultant magnitude of the wall shear stress depends on the
’flow’ direction and intensity of buoyancy in a flow. The value of flow
is calibrated with DNS data for upward and downward flow.
Buoyant shear stress is given by equation (13) and it is calibrated
with DNS in the next section 3.
tb ¼ yb gðrb  rm Þ
Where,
ZTw rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 yvs tw;m
rm ¼ rdT; yb ¼ ; utw ¼
ðTw  Tb Þ 1
Prcs
3 rw
Tb
3. Calibration and validation
3.1. Introduction to DNS for presented case
For calibration purpose, DNS data have been used. DNS is
considered as a reliable numerical method for fundamental tur-
bulence research, although its usage is limited to the low Reynolds
number as a result of high demand on computational resources.
The inconvenience of obtaining turbulence statistics in the exper-
iments due to extreme conditions of supercritical fluids prevents a
further investigation of complex heat transfer phenomena, which
happens to be the strength of DNS [39]. In the current DNS, the
dimensioned low-Mach-number governing equations in Cartesian
coordinates, as described in Ref. [6]; were discretized with the open
source finite volume code OpenFOAM V2.4 [28]. The Pressure-
Implicit with Splitting of Operators (PISO) algorithm was applied
for pressure-velocity coupling. The temporal term was discretized
with the second order implicit Euler scheme. The spatial dis-
cretization was handled with the central differencing scheme and a
third order upwind scheme QUICK was adopted for the convective
term in the energy equation. For heated domain mesh size was
168  172  2400 (radial, circumferential and axial direction),
which is significantly higher than the well-known DNS work from
Bae et al. [2] and [3] under the condition of the same second-order
accuracy in both codes. The authenticity of the current numerical
method has been tested for air flowing in a vertical pipe with
measured data from experiments [7]. Another validation of DNS in
231
pipe flow of sCO2 is given in Ref. [6]. From the complete DNS
database, 3 cases of vertical flow in pipe viz. forced (i.e. without
buoyancy), upward and downward are employed in the current
work. Table 1 depicts the simulation conditions for DNS.
3.2. Calibrated model parameter
An additional parameter cv was introduced earlier in equation
(11) to model the acceleration effect and it consists of an arbitrary
constant A and u2m . The value of u2m depends upon the flow while
the magnitude of A was adjusted to have an optimized value of
goodness of fit. The mean square error (MSE) was chosen as the
goodness of fit (see equation (14) for definition) and value of cv is
found to be 7:3  106 while optimizing MSE for wall temperature
and modified wall shear stress as shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 5a and b
shows the variation for the wall temperature and shear stress
respectively along the heated length. Both calibrated value and DNS
values are shown. In this case, gravity is set to zero in DNS to have a
reference case only for acceleration effects without buoyancy. From
Fig. 5a, it can be observed that due to uniform heat flux, wall
(12) temperature keeps rising, which is the result of increased thermal
resistance across the layers. On the other hand, wall shear stress
decrease with heated length, which will result in lesser pressure
drop so lesser the heat transfer coefficient.
1X N
MSE ¼ ðmodel  DNSÞ2 (14)
N n¼1
(13)
The second step in the process of calibration is to calibrate the
data for buoyancy for equation (13). For that, parameter 0 flow0 was
varied and MSE was optimized similarly to relaminarization. Fig. 6a
and b shows the variation of the wall temperature and wall shear
stress for upward flow, which has combined effect of acceleration
and buoyancy. DNS results show an oscillating pattern which is
assumed to be damped out after a certain heated length. During
heating in upward flow, buoyancy effects will stabilize the flow as
the direction of buoyancy force and flow are same. As a result of this
stabilizing effect, the tendency of development of ‘M'shaped ve-
locity profile will increase. Therefore, the magnitude of wall shear
stress will increase and turbulence is decayed. This stabilization
effect is responsible for the increase in the wall temperature and
poor heat transfer between the wall and fluid.
Fig. 7a and b illustrate the variations for downward flow. The
wall temperature increment is very less and this can be explained
by stabilizing effect. Due to constant heat flux, fluid is heated and
buoyancy force acts upward while the flow direction is downward.
This makes flow unstable and creates a chaotic condition. It will
enhance the heat transfer, therefore, wall temperature increases
slowly in the flow direction. The presented model also predicts a
peculiar behavior in wall shear stress, it shows a negative value
during entire flow. This indicates the limitation of presented model
in the prediction of hydraulic behavior in the downward flow. To
mitigate it, a wise selection of goodness-of-fit parameter is required
along with weights assign to objective functions in the
optimization.
The presented model over-predicts or under-predicts the value
Table 1
Simulation conditions for the DNS.
Parameter Value Parameter Value
D 2 mm Lh 60 mm
Rei 5400 ½ Pi 8 MPa
qw 30.87 W/m2 Ti 301.15 K
232 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

the inlet. Table 2 summarized the calibrated parameter obtained

from this study for forced and mixed (upward and downward)
convection.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Comparison with constant properties correlation

The constant property case is an important measure to check the

validity of any model or correlation in the subcritical region and
high-pressure region, where the properties variations are negli-
gible. Fig. 8 shows the comparison of presented model with the
most commonly used correlations viz. [8,10,14]. An excellent
agreement can be observed at low Prandtl number. All the corre-
lations deviate at high Pr. In spite of that, the current model agrees
with the Gnielinskis correlation very well at all value of Re and Pr.
Fig. 4. Optimizing MSE between wall temperature and wall shear stress.

of wall temperature at the inlet section. The main reasons for this
disparency are thermal inlet effects in the DNS. These effects were
not within the scope of this study; therefore they are not modeled
in this study. Also, they are not of importance as for longer heated
length, one would be more interested in overall flow rather than
4.2. Validation with available experiments
For validation purpose, there is a scarcity of experimental data
for sCO2 with 2 mm pipe diameter comparable to PCHE's channels,
with both upward and downward flow. Experiments conducted by
Ref. [16] are well accepted by the scientific community and

Fig. 5. Calibration of model with DNS for acceleration.

Fig. 6. Calibration of model with DNS for buoyancy in upward flow.

 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238 233

Fig. 7. Calibration of model with DNS for buoyancy in downward flow.

Table 2 experiments, pressure drop (head loss) occurs due to major and
Summary of calibration parameter. minor losses in the flow and this drop will certainly enhance the
Case A (in cv ¼ Au2m ) Flow m in eq. (4) MSE for Tw MSE for tw heat transfer. A similar trend can also be seen in high flux case after
Forced 0 mcs 18.5090 0.0053
the heat transfer deterioration where the model predicts higher
7:3  106
Upward 7:3  106 1 mw 65.5777 0.0028 wall temperature than the experiments. In lower heat flux case
Downward 7:3  106 10 mw 7.0906 0.0776 (with qw ¼ 10 kW/m2), one can observe a deviation from old model
which predicts heat transfer very well. This is because of at lower
heat flux, property variations are not significant, therefore insig-
nificant effect of the density variation. Nevertheless, presented
model excels most of the correlation in term of prediction of heat
transfer along with hydraulic characteristics.
Fig. 10 shows the variation of wall shear stress for all three cases
of heat flux. The wall shear stress is nearly constant for lower heat
flux case due to the insignificant variation of properties. For me-
dium and high heat flux, a distortion can be seen. These oscillations
are a result of sharp radial properties variation sourced by the heat
transfer deterioration. For e.g. wall temperature suddenly increases
after bulk hb z230 kJ/kg due to deterioration at a high heat flux of
50 kW/m2. At the same time oscillation can be observed in wall
shear stress. These oscillations damp out shortly after this region.
Yet, cooling of sCO2 was not aimed during the development of
this model, but in the future, it is one of the aim of research.
Therefore, comparing this model with available cooling experiment
will provide an insight. Fig. 11 illustrates the comparison with the
experiments of [9]. Horizontal layout with comparatively larger
Fig. 8. Variation of bulk Nusselt number with bulk Reynolds number.
mass flux to heat flux ratio was considered during the experiments.
Therefore, smaller property variation and it resembles near-
therefore serve as a reliable database for the validation. The constant property case. An excellent agreement can be observed,
including in the prediction of heat transfer enhancement at pseu-
experimental parameters were: internal diameter of pipe was
4.4 mm, heated length was 2.1 m, inlet pressure and temperature docritical temperature.
were varied in between 7.75 and 8.85 MPa and 5e30
C respec-
tively. In the experiments, they used the vertical orientation of pipe 4.3. Parametric study
with only upward flow. Fig. 9 depicts the validation for presented
model with experiments of [16] along with the previous model of The aim of the parametric study is to investigate the sensitivity
[29]. The mean relative error (MRE) comes down to 13.1% from of the solution to the parameters. A parametric study is an impor-
18.3% for high heat flux case (i.e. qw ¼ 50 kW/m2). Also, heat tant tool to optimize the design of a device, trend base analysis, and
transfer deterioration is predicted with higher accuracy than the what-if type of analysis. In the following sub-sections a similar
previous model. For medium heat flux (correspond to qw ¼ 30 kW/ analysis is performed, in which parameters are varied to identify
m2), there is not much improvement in term of MRE. Also, pre- the effects on heat transfer.
sented model predicts a peak in wall temperature, which wasn't
observed in experiments. The reason for this dissimilarity can be 4.3.1. Influence of thermophysical properties
either inability of presented model or increase in heat transfer rate For the sCO2, very little change to the model parameter or
in the experiments. One explanation can be that during the boundary conditions may imply large discrepancies. Especially,
234 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

Fig. 9. Variation of wall temperature with bulk fluid enthalpy (a) qw ¼ 50 kW/m2 (b) qw ¼ 30 kW/m2 (c) qw ¼ 10 kW/m2.

Fig. 10. Variation of shear stress with heated length corresponding to Fig. 9. Fig. 11. Comparison with experiments for cooling at P ¼ 9 MPa, G  D ¼ 2.4 kg/m s,
qw ¼ 12 kW/m2.

thermophysical properties have a significant effect on heat transfer.

For better understanding, the influence of thermophysical proper- present in the practical cases. The sole aim of this sub-section is to
ties on wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient is discussed identify the properties which have extreme effect on heat transfer.
in this section. It is worth to mention that, this case will not be Fig. 12 presents the variation in wall temperature and heat transfer
 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238
coefficient for variable properties and for different scenarios where
one of the thermophysical property is held constant based on inlet
conditions. The inlet Reynolds number is set to 6000, wall heat flux
to 35 kW/m2, inlet pressure and temperature to 8 MPa and 298 K
while the diameter is kept 2 mm and the heated length is 750 times
of diameter to resemble the channels of PCHE.
Out of all 5 cases, thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity
have extreme effect on heat transfer. While holding thermal con-
ductivity constant, heat transfer coefficient shows its peak at
94 kW/m2 (not shown in the graph). In this case, the thermal
resistance offered by laminar sub-layer is zero and the temperature
difference between bulk and wall is only because of the turbulent
core layer. In another extreme scenario where dynamic viscosity
held constant, wall temperature has the highest value compared to
other cases due to the higher resistance offered by turbulent core
layer.
4.3.2. Influence of mass flux
Fig. 13a illustrates the effect of mass flux on the local heat
transfer coefficient. As the mass flux increases, Reynolds number
also increases proportionally thereby intensifies the turbulence.
This increased turbulence augments the heat transfer between the
Fig. 12. Influence of thermophysical properties on (a) Wall temperature (b) Heat
transfer coefficient.
235
bulk fluid and wall of the pipe, similar to constant properties fluids.
As a result of it, wall temperature will decrease with the increasing
mass flux. A peak can be seen in a at zz150D for G ¼ 219 kg/m2 s.
With the decreasing mass flux, this peak is shifting towards the
inlet because increased bulk temperature will reach the pseudoc-
ritical point earlier. Fig. 13b shows the Nusselt number (Nu ¼ alD)
b
variation, Nu increases with the mass flux as expected. For a given
mass flux, it decreases as heat transfer coefficient is decreasing but
as soon as it reaches near the pseudocritical point, it shows a steep
rise.
4.3.3. Influence of inlet temperature
Fig. 14a depicts the variation of a with the heated length for
different inlet temperature of sCO2. The magnitude of a decreases
with the increase in inlet temperature of fluid. The reason for this
behavior is a drop in the value of isobaric specific heat and thermal
conductivity. Besides, it can be observed that the peak in heat
transfer coefficient is shifting towards the inlet and it disappears
after 306 K. The peak in a is only observed at the pseudocritical
point but as the fluid inlet temperature increases and as it crosses
the pseudocritical temperature, this peak starts vanishing. In this
case Nu is a function of heat transfer coefficient and thermal
Fig. 13. (a) Local heat transfer coefficient (b) Bulk Nusselt number variation; for
different mass flux of CO2 for upward flow, P ¼ 8 MPa, D ¼ 2 mm, Ti ¼ 301.1 K.
236 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238

Fig. 14. (a) Local heat transfer coefficient (b) Bulk Nusselt number variation; for
Fig. 15. (a) Local heat transfer coefficient (b) Bulk Nusselt number; for different in-
different inlet temperature of CO2, P ¼ 8 MPa, D ¼ 2 mm, Rei ¼ 5400.
ternal diameter of pipe, p ¼ 8 MPa, Rei ¼ 5400, Ti ¼ 301.1 K.

conductivity, therefore it decrease up to Tpc and after this point, it

starts increasing (refer Fig. 14b). Significant variation in Nu can be
observed, especially in two cases with Ti ¼ 295 K and 301 K,
because fluid will pass throughout the critical region. On the other
hand in the case with Ti ¼ 311 K, Nu shows least variation due to
insignificant properties change.

4.3.4. Influence of pipe diameter

Fig. 15a demonstrates the effect of internal diameter of pipe on
a. For the same inlet conditions, pipe with smaller diameter shows
the higher amplitude of a because mass flux will be higher rela-
tively and it escalates the heat transfer. In Fig. 15b Nu shows a
comparatively higher value for smaller diameter especially in first
100 diameter length due to this region lies where drastic properties
variation takes place. The higher Nusselt number at the inlet is due
to the effect of buoyancy on the larger diameter are more intense
than the smaller diameter. These effects were quantified by
buoyant shear stress and its variation is shown in Fig. 16. These
effects are more pronounced when the temperature difference
between the bulk and wall is higher, so the density variation
Fig. 16. Buoyant shear stress variation; for different internal diameter of pipe,
strengthens the effect of mixed convection. For a given diameter, p ¼ 8 MPa, Rei ¼ 5400, Ti ¼ 301.1 K.
Nusselt number initially decreases but after a point, it starts
 S. Pandey et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 117 (2017) 227e238
increasing again. For D ¼ 2:5 mm, bulk temperature crosses the Tpc
at zz76D, thereby after it Nu is increasing. A similar observation
can be noticed from other cases as well.
4.4. Need of further experiments and DNS database
In the present study, only 3 cases of DNS were used to calibrate
the model. To have a more comprehensive, reliable and generalize
model, there is need to calibrate with more DNS cases. In this study,
the focus was only on the heating of sCO2 but there are wide ap-
plications of sCO2 in cooling ranges from refrigeration industry to
power plants. Therefore, DNS cases are needed for cooling as well.
Furthermore, DNS provides an understanding of the physics, which
is still unavailable for cooling of sCO2 as none DNS study was
conducted in this domain. Moreover, validation is an important
part in the process of reliable model development. But the avail-
ability of experimental data obstructs the development process. In
the literature, few experiments are available with the exhaustive
detail of parameters for small diameter pipes which correspond to
PCHE's channels. Therefore, authors urge to experimentalist to
conduct the experiments in the range of application. As this model
is based upon coupled hydraulic and heat transfer in which both
wall shear stress and wall temperature were used to optimize the
model. So the measurements of skin friction coefficient along with
wall temperature are required from the experiments. The temper-
ature gradient in the radial direction assumed to follow the loga-
rithmic law similar as velocity profile in the turbulent flow, in the
theory presented here. But at higher Re with strong heat flux, this
has to be verified with experiments. As stated earlier cooling is
equally important as heating thus experiments are necessary
especially with near-constant heat flux with both upward and
downward direction flow.
5. Conclusion
This work was initiated with the aim of development of a reli-
able analytical model which is simple in implementation like cor-
relations. The advantage of presented model over turbulent model
is, its simplicity and easy applicability, also this model uses very
little computer resources as compared to DNS and typical CFD
modelings. In this work, two layer theory for the turbulent flow was
used with a different approach. The presented model has shown
superiority over the previous model while taking the buoyant and
acceleration effects. To improve the model, DNS database served as
a benchmark to calibrate. The validity of presented model is sup-
ported by verification with three cases videlicet (i) constant prop-
erty; (ii) experimental database in the pseudocritical range and (iii)
cooling case with high mass flux to heat flux ratio. In all cases, an
acceptable agreement was achieved. A parametric study was also
presented to identify the effect of different variables on heat
transfer. Following points summarize the parametric study:
 Thermal conductivity and viscosity have the limiting effect on
the heat transfer to sCO2.
 Heat transfer increases with mass flux for a given diameter, inlet
temperature, and pressure.
 The pipe with smaller diameter has the minor effect of buoyancy
for given inlet conditions.
The validity of this model can only be warranted in the validated
range of given study. For other cases, credibility is uncertain
because of unavailability of experimental data within the range of
PCHE. Therefore, a request is made to the experimentalist for a
comprehensive database. Development of a universal heat transfer
model for sCO2 that remains valid for all ranges of temperature and
237
pressure is a long path and the model presented here is step for-
ward in that direction.
6. Acknowledgement
The first and third author acknowledge the financial support
provided by Forschungsinstitut für Kerntechnik und Ener-
giewandlung (KE) e.V. in terms of doctoral research fellowship. All
authors extend their sincere thanks to the High Performance
Computing Center (HLRS) of the University of Stuttgart for granting
access to high-performance computers for DNS.
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