Heat transfer and fluid flow of supercritical fluids in advanced energy systems

This chapter aims to clarify the supercritical fluids thermal hydraulics characteristics including heat transfer, pressure drops and flow instabilities for the purpose of accurate design and efficient safe operation of advanced energy systems. At first, the convection heat transfer models considering the effect of nonlinear properties and the effect of buoyancy and acceleration have been provided and discussed. Secondly, the hydraulic resistance models for supercritical fluids have been selected and suggested for different conditions. Thirdly, the published models for supercritical flow instabilities based on four different regional partitions are summarized and clarified. At last, two typical case studies have been provided to further intuitively elaborate the thermal hydraulics of supercritical fluids within the advanced energy systems.