Influence of various aspects of low Reynolds number k-ε turbulence models on predicting in-tube buoyancy affected heat transfer to supercritical pressure fluids

Heat transfer to supercritical pressure fluids was modeled for normal and buoyancy affected conditions using several low Reynolds number k-ε models, including the Launder and Sharma, Myong and Kasagi, and Abe, Kondoh and Nagano, with the predictions compared with experimental data. All three turbulence models accurately predicted the cases without heat transfer deterioration, but failed to accurately predict the cases with heat transfer deterioration although the general trends were captured, indicating that further improvements and modifications are needed for the low Reynolds number k-ε turbulence models to better predict buoyancy deteriorated heat transfer. Further investigations studied the influence of various aspects of the low Reynolds number k-ε turbulence models, including the turbulent Prandtl number, the buoyancy production of turbulent kinetic energy, and the damping function to provide guidelines for model development to more precisely predict buoyancy affected heat transfer. The results show that the turbulent Prandtl number and the buoyancy production of turbulent kinetic energy have little influence on the predictions for cases in this study, while new damping functions with carefully selected control parameters are needed in the low Reynolds number k-ε turbulence models to correctly predict the buoyancy effect for heat transfer simulations in various applications such as supercritical pressure steam generators (SPSGs) in the high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTR) and the supercritical pressure water reactor (SCWR).