NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF FLUID FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER FOR LAMINAR WATER FLOW IN A DUCT AT CRITICAL PRESSURE

The paper presents numerical results for the prediction of two- dimensional laminar heat transfer to water flow at critical pressure. The set of governing equations containing continuity, momentum and energy are solved simultaneously using CFD technique. The discretized form of each equation is obtained by finite volume method and the SIMPLE algorithm is used for pressure-velocity calculations. In all of the case studies, sub-cooled water at critical pressure (22.1 Mpa) enters into a duct with constant surface temperature which is near the fluid critical temperature. Numerical results show that as the fluid temperature approaches the critical temperature, the variations of fluid properties increase rapidly and cause an unusual velocity profile for this type of convective flow. In the present work, the crucial influence of fluid property variation on flow and heat transfer distributions at critical pressure is thoroughly explored.