Conjugate Heat Transfer High-Heat-Flux Amplification Simulation

High-heat-flux (HHF) removal (HHFR) limits can be formidable technological barriers that prevent or limit the normal implementation or optimization of new and novel devices or processes. A conjugate heat transfer HHFR simulation methodology has been developed with excellent resulting accuracy (>98.0% accurate) for predicting HHF amplification (peaking factors) and the peak flow channel inside wall temperature. The methodology can be used directly or expanded to a correlation form. Although the simulation utilized axial and swirl water flows with single-phase fully developed turbulent and subcooled flow boiling in a single-side-heated circular inside flow channel with a rectangular outer boundary, the methodology appears to be fluid- and flow regime-independent (e.g., applicable to developing or jet impingement flows) so that other fluids (e.g., gases, dielectric liquids, liquid metals) and flow regimes can be employed possibly for HHFR applications requiring specialized fluids and/or flow conditions. However, more work is required to validate the applicability of this methodology (and the correlation) to other fluids, flow regimes, and channel materials. Further, the approach can be expanded possibly to include applications employing a hypervapotron for HHFR. For the prototypic simulation cases (38.0 MW/m²) considered, the circumferential inside flow channel heat transfer coefficient distribution [h([varphi])] was not known a priori, so, h([varphi]) was determined from the unknown local inside wall heat flux via iterative finite element conjugate heat transfer analyses for flow regimes ranging from fully developed turbulent subcooled flow boiling (at the top of the flow channel) to single-phase turbulent flow (at the bottom of the flow channel).