• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3540-3550
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• 2022

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).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.132-141
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• 1992

The critical condition for onset of Benard convection with variable viscosity .nu.=.nu.$_{0}$exp(-CT) has been obtained using a linear stability theory. The bottom wall is rigid while the upper surface may be either free or rigid. The two boundaries are subject to convective heat transfer. The critical Rayleigh numbers are presented up to maximum viscosity ratio of 3000. It is greater for smaller upper and/or lower surface Biot numbers. Its dependence on the viscosity ratio is complicated. However, a simple sublayer theory is found to be applicable for extremely large viscosity ratio. In such cases, the critical Rayleigh number and the critical wave number are functions of viscosity ratio and lower surface Biot number.r.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.125-135
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• 1992

In various viscus flow problems it has been the custom to replace the convective derivative by the ordinary partial derivative in problems for which the data are small. In this paper we consider the Benard Convection problem with small data and compare the solution of this problem (assumed to exist) with that of the linearized system resulting from dropping the nonlinear terms in the expression for the convective derivative. The objective of the present work is to derive an estimate for the error introduced in neglecting the convective inertia terms. In fact, we derive an explicit bound for the L$_{2}$ error. Indeed, if the initial data are O(.epsilon.) where .epsilon. << 1, and the Rayleigh number is sufficiently small, we show that this error is bounded by the product of a term of O(.epsilon.$^{2}$) times a decaying exponential in time. The results of the present paper then give a justification for linearizing the Benard Convection problem. We remark that although our results are derived for classical solutions, extensions to appropriately defined weak solutions are obvious. Throughout this paper we will make use of a comma to denote partial differentiation and adopt the summation convention of summing over repeated indices (in a term of an expression) from one to three. As reference to work of continuous dependence on modelling and initial data, we mention the papers of Payne and Sather [8], Ames [2] Adelson [1], Bennett [3], Payne et al. [9], and Song [11,12,13,14]. Also, a similar analysis of a micropolar fluid problem backward in time (an ill-posed problem) was given by Payne and Straughan [10] and Payne [7].