Turbulent heat transfer characteristics of liquid sodium flow in cylinder tube

The high Reynolds number k-ε model and wall function method were applied to compute numerically the turbulent heat transfer characteristics of liquid sodium flow in a cylinder tube. The numerical results are in good agreement with some experimental results in open literatures. Meanwhile, the effects of turbulence and heating conditions on the heat transfer characteristics of liquid sodium were studied by applying this method. The analysis results indicate that the influence of the turbulence is mainly reflected in the forepart of the tube. As the molecule diffusion effect plays a more important role in the middle and posterior part, the heat transfer difference between different turbulence flows reduces gradually. The initial temperature and heat flux have little effects on heat transfer characteristics.