• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2018

A compact heat exchanger is one of critical components in a very high temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR). Alloy 617 (Ni-Cr-Co-Mo) is considered as one of leading candidates for this application due to its excellent thermal stability and strengths in anticipated operating conditions. On the basis of current ASME code requirements, sixty sheets of this alloy are prepared for diffusion welding, which is the key technology to have a reliable compact heat exchanger. Optical microscopic analysis show that there are no cracks, incomplete bond, and porosity at/near the interface of diffusion weldment, but Cr-rich carbides and Al-rich oxides are identified through high resolution electron microscopic analysis. In high-temperature tensile testing, superior yield strengths of the diffusion weldment compared to the code requirement are obtained up to 1223 K ($950^{\circ}C$). However, both tensile strength and ductility drop rapidly at higher temperature due to the insufficient grain boundary migration across the interface of diffusion weldment. Best fit curves for minimum yield strength and average tensile strength are drawn from the experimental tensile results of this study.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.915-923
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• 2008

The performance experiments for a microchannel printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) of high-performance and high-efficiency on the two technologies of micro photo-etching and diffusion bonding were performed in this study. The microchannel PCHE were experimentally investigated for Reynolds number in ranges of 100 $\sim$ 700 under various flow conditions in the hot side and the cold side. The inlet temperatures of the hot side were conducted in range of $40^{\circ}C\;{\sim}\;50^{\circ}C$ while that of the cold-side were fixed at $20^{\circ}C$. In the flow pattern, the counter flow was provided 6.8% and 10 $\sim$ 15% higher average heat transfer rate and heat transfer performance than the parallel flow, respectively. The average heat transfer rate, heat transfer performance and pressure drop increases with increasing Reynolds number in all the experiment. The increasing of inlet temperature in the experiment range has not an effect on the heat transfer performance while the pressure drop decrease slightly with that of inlet temperature. The experimental correlations to the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop factor as a function of the Reynolds number have been suggested for the microchannel PCHE.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.215-220
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• 2008

A microchannel PCHE is manufactured by the two technologies of micro photo-etching and diffusion bonding. In this paper, heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics by applying various configuration for the flow channel in the microchannel PCHE is experimentally investigated. The flow channel configurations are designed three types such as straight, wavy and offset strip channels. The performance experiment of each configuration is performed for Reynolds numbers in ranges of $100{\sim}700$ under various flow conditions for the hot side and the Reynolds number of cold side is fixed at 350. The inlet temperatures of the hot side and cold side are conducted as $40^{\circ}C$ and $20^{\circ}C$, respectively. The heat transfer performance of wavy channel, which was similar to that of offset strip channel, was much higher than that of straight channel. The effectiveness of wavy channel and offset strip channel was evaluated as about $0.5{\sim}0.9$. The pressure drop of wavy channel was highest among configurations and that of offset strip channel was lower than that of straight channel because the round curved surface of each strip edge was reduced the pressure loss.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.863-870
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• 2016

We investigated the physical/chemical phenomena that a slow loss of $CO_2$ inventory into sodium after the sodium-$CO_2$ boundary failure in printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHEs), which is considered for the supercritical $CO_2$ Brayton cycle power conversion system of a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). The first phenomenon is plugging inside narrow sodium channels by micro cracks and the other one is damage propagation referred to as wastage combined with the corrosion/erosion effect. Experimental results of plugging shows that sodium flow immediately stopped as $CO_2$ was injected through the nozzle at $300{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ in 3 mmID sodium channels, whereas sodium flow stopped about 60 min after $CO_2$ injection in 5 mmID sodium channels. These results imply that if pressure boundary of sodium-$CO_2$ fails a narrow sodium channel would be plugged by reaction products in a short time whereas a relatively wider sodium channel would be plugged with higher concentration of reaction products. Wastage by the erosion effect of $CO_2$ (200~250 bar) hardly occurred regardless of the kinds of materials (stainless steel 316, Inconel 600, and 9Cr-1Mo steel), temperature ($400{\sim}500^{\circ}C$), or the diameter of the $CO_2$ nozzle (0.2~0.8 mm). Velocities at the $CO_2$ nozzle were specified as Mach 0.4~0.7. Our experimental results are expected to be used for determining the design parameters of PCHEs for their safeties.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.408-418
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• 2017

Supercritical carbon dioxide ($sCO_2$) power system is emerging technology because of its high cycle efficiency and compactness. Meanwhile, PCHE (Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger) is gaining attention in $sCO_2$ power system technology because PCHE with high pressure-resistance and larger heat transfer surface per unit volume is fundamentally needed. Thermo-fluidic characteristics of $sCO_2$ in the micro channel of PCHE should be investigated. In this study, heat transfer characteristics of $sCO_2$ of various inlet conditions and cross-sectional shapes of single micro channel were investigated experimentally. Experiment was conducted at supercritical state of higher than critical temperature and pressure. Test sections were made of copper and hydraulic diameter was 1 mm. Convective heat transfer coefficients were measured according to each interval of the channel and pressure drop was also measured. Convective heat transfer coefficients from experimental data were compared with existing correlation. In this study, using measured data, a new empirical correlation to predict near critical region heat transfer coefficient is developed and suggested. Test results of single channel will be used for design of PCHE.