Laminar forced convective heat transfer to near-critical water in a tube

Numerical modeling is carried out to investigate forced convective heat transfer to nearcritical water in developing laminar flow through a circular tube. Due to large variations of thermo-physical properties such as density, specific heat, viscosity, and thermal conductivity near thermodynamic critical point, heat transfer characteristics show quite different behavior compared with pure forced convection. With flow acceleration along the tube unusual behavior of heat transfer coefficient and friction factor occurs when the fluid enthalpy passes through pseudocritical point of pressure in the tube. There is also a transition behavior from liquid-like phase to gas-like phase in the developing region. Numerical results with constant heat flux boundary conditions are obtained for reduced pressures from 1.09 to 1.99. Graphical results for velocity, temperature, and heat transfer coefficient with Stanton number are presented and analyzed.