Development of a heat-transfer correlation for supercritical water in supercritical water-cooled reactor applications

Abstract

A large set of experimental data, obtained in Russia, was analyzed and a new heat-transfer correlation for supercritical water was developed. This experimental dataset was obtained within conditions similar to those for proposed SuperCritical Water-cooled nuclear Reactor (SCWR) concepts. Thus, this new correlation, for forced convective heat transfer in the normal heat-transfer regime, can be used for preliminary heat-transfer calculations in SCWR fuel channels. It has demonstrated a good fit for Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) values (±25%) and for wall temperature calculations (±15) for the analyzed dataset. This correlation can be used for supercritical water heat exchangers linked to indirectcycle concepts and the co-generation of hydrogen, for future comparisons with other independent datasets, with bundle data, as the reference case, for the verification of computer codes for SCWR core thermalhydraulics and for the verification of scaling parameters between water and modeling fluids.