Numerical analysis of Poiseuille-Rayleigh-Bénard convection in supercritical carbon dioxide

The supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO₂) Brayton cycle is an important energy conversion technology for the fourth generation of nuclear energy. Since the printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) used in the S-CO₂ Brayton cycle has narrow channels, Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) convection is likely to exist in the tiny channels. However, there are very few studies on RB convection in supercritical fluids. Current research on RB convection mainly focuses on conventional fluids such as water and air that meet the Boussinesq assumption. It is necessary to study non-Boussinesq fluids. PRB convection refers to RB convection that is affected by horizontal incoming flow. In this paper, the computational fluid dynamics simulation method is used to study the PRB convection phenomenon of non-Boussinesq fluid-supercritical carbon dioxide. The result shows that the inlet Reynolds number (Re) of the horizontal incoming flow significantly affects the PRB convection. When the inlet Re remains unchanged, with the increase of Rayleigh number (Ra), the steady-state convective pattern of the fluid layer is shown in order: horizontal flow, local traveling wave, traveling wave convection. If Ra remains unchanged, as the inlet Re increases, three convection patterns of traveling wave convection, local traveling wave, and horizontal flow will appear in sequence. To characterize the relationship between traveling wave convection and horizontal incoming flow, this paper proposes the relationship between critical Reynolds number and relative Rayleigh number (r).