Flow and heat transfer of hydrocarbon fuel at supercritical pressure in additive manufacturing channel

Experimental investigations of n-decane flow behavior and heat transfer performance at supercritical pressure about AM (additive manufacturing) and smooth channels are presented in this article. The effect of changing system pressure (3 MPa, 5 MPa and 7 MPa) and heating power (550 W, 600 W and 650 W) have been considered with a Reynolds number range of 3000-6000. The inner diameter of the two channels is 2 mm, and the wall thickness is 0.5 mm. AM channels have a mean roughness of 11 & mu;m, while smooth channels' mean roughness of 3 & mu;m. Additionally, it is discovered from the consequences that flow behavior and heat transfer performance are greatly affected by the rough surface of AM channels. For flow behavior, the friction factor of AM channels is 2.8-3.5 times more than that of smooth channels. AM channels will show a decrease in pressure loss with higher system pressure in contrast to smooth channels. Besides, the pressure loss of AM channels will hardly be affected by changing heating power. For heat transfer performance, the Nu number of AM channels is 2.7-3.3 times more than that of smooth channels. Moreover, the wall temperature of AM channels is hardly affected by changes in system pressure. Furthermore, changing the heating power has a negligible effect on the two channels' wall temperatures. Eventually, the integrated heat transfer coefficient of AM channels is 1.98-2.32, indicating that AM channels exhibit a prominent reinforcement of heat transfer.