CFD Calculation of Internal Natural Convection in the Annulus between Horizontal Concentric Cylinders

N.D. Francis, Jr ; Itamura, M.T. ; Webb, S.W. ; James, D.L.

United States. Department of Energy. Yucca Mountain Project Office.

关键词: Annular Space;    Cylinders;    Computerized Simulation;    Fluid Flow;    42 Engineering;   

DOI  :  10.2172/808039
RP-ID  :  SAND2002-3132
RP-ID  :  AC04-94AL85000
RP-ID  :  808039

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The objective of this heat transfer and fluid flow study is to assess the ability of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to reproduce the experimental results, numerical simulation results, and heat transfer correlation equations developed in the literature for natural convection heat transfer within the annulus of horizontal concentric cylinders. In the literature, a variety of heat transfer expressions have been developed to compute average equivalent thermal conductivities. However, the expressions have been primarily developed for very small inner and outer cylinder radii and gap-widths. In this comparative study, interest is primarily focused on large gap widths (on the order of half meter or greater) and large radius ratios. From the steady-state CFD analysis it is found that the concentric cylinder models for the larger geometries compare favorably to the results of the Kuehn and Goldstein correlations in the Rayleigh number range of about 10{sup 5} to 10{sup 8} (a range that encompasses the laminar to turbulent transition). For Rayleigh numbers greater than 10{sup 8}, both numerical simulations and experimental data (from the literature) are consistent and result in slightly lower equivalent thermal conductivities than those obtained from the Kuehn and Goldstein correlations.