Heat Transfer to Supercritical Water in Smooth-Bore Tubes

Abstract

Local forced convection heat-transfer coefficients for supercritical water flowing inside smooth-bore tubes were obtained experimentally over a range of pressures (3300 to 6000 psia) and bulk temperatures (167 to 1068 F). Because the thermophysical properties of supercritical fluids change rapidly with temperature in the pseudocritical range, conventional forced convection correlations were unable to fit the data. However, a satisfactory correlation for fully developed turbulent flow was obtained by properly modifying the conventional nondimensional model to account for the physical property variation across the boundary layer. Out of 2951 data points, 95 percent lie within ±15 percent of the correlation. It was also found that the same equation correlated supercritical pressure heat-transfer data of carbon dioxide over a wide range of conditions with good accuracy.