An experimental study on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of carbon dioxide during gas cooling process in a horizontal tube

The heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop during gas cooling process of CO2 (R744) in a horizontal tube were investigated experimentally. The experiments are conducted without oil in the refrigerant loop. The main components of the refrigerant loop are a receiver, a variable-speed pump, a mass flow meter, a pre-heater and a gas cooler (test section). The water loop consists of a variable speed pump, an isothermal tank, and a flow meter. The refrigerant, circulated by the variable-speed pump, condenses in the inner tube while water flows in the annulus. The gas cooler of tube diameter is 6000 mm in length, and it is divided into 12 subsections.The pressure drop of CO2 in the gas cooler shows a relatively good agreement with those predicted by Blasius's correlation. The local heat transfer coefficient of CO2 agrees well with the correlation by Bringer–Smith. However, at the region near Pseudo-critical temperature, the experiments indicate higher values than the Bringer–Smith correlation. Based on the experimental data presented in this paper, a new correlation to predict the heat transfer coefficient of supercritical CO2 during in-tube cooling has been developed. The majority of the experimental values are within 18% of the values predicted by the new correlation.