Review and proposal for heat transfer predictions at supercritical water conditions using existing correlations and experiments

This paper summarizes the activities of the TRACE code validation at the Institute for Neutron Physics and Reactor Technology related to supercritical water conditions. In particular, the providing of the thermo physical properties and its appropriate use in the wall-to-fluid heat transfer models in the frame of the TRACE code is the object of this investigation. In a first step, the thermo physical properties of the original TRACE code were modified in order to account for supercritical conditions. In a second step, existing Nusselt correlations were reviewed and implemented into TRACE and available experiments were simulated to identify the most suitable Nusselt correlation(s).

► Implementation of heat transfer correlations for supercritical water into TRACE. ► Simulation of several heat transfer experiments with modified TRACE version. ► Most correlations are not able to reproduce the experimental results. ► Bishop, Sandberg and Tong correlation is most suitable for TRACE applications.