Review of the correlation developments and a new concept based on mixing mechanism for heat transfer enhancement of spacer grids

Abstract

Abstract Spacer grids could cause heat transfer enhancement both at the spacer grid regions and downstream of the spacer grids as a result of mixing promoted by the spacer grids in the rod bundle. This phenomenon has been demonstrated by many experiments, and several correlations have been developed based on these experimental data. This paper gives a review of the grid-enhanced heat transfer correlation developments in single phase flow. Following the exploration of the correlation development history, a predictive formulation of grid-enhanced heat transfer in single phase flow is established taking into account the effect of both swirl flow and crossflow. With emphasis on modeling of the mixing mechanism associated with the mixing vane grid, the new correlation could better reflect the physical process of the heat transfer augmentation, while a large number of experimental data are needed to determine the coefficients of the new correlation.