Predictive study of laminar natural convection in supercritical fluid along vertical flat plate

Abstract EN

The laminar natural convection in supercritical fluid along vertical flat plate with uniform heat flux was simulated in the present work.

The governing equations of partial differential equations were solved numerically using the finite difference method.

The thermo-physical properties calculation was based on a Van der Waals equation of state.

The velocity and temperature profiles were solved with a FORTRAN code.

Hydrofluorocarbons R134a, R1234yf and R404a were used as working fluids.

Thermal expansivity at a reduced pressure and reduced temperature near critical point (Pr and Tr = 1.05, 1.1) showed sharp variation.

The local Nusselt number as a function of the local Rayleigh number was plotted.

The curve trend illustrates that the Nusselt number decreases as the reduced pressure and reduced temperature increases.

The corresponding curves of supercritical conditions depict the same shape of the corresponding line of classic correlation.

The velocity and temperature developing along the vertical plate was plotted and contour lines explained the fluid behavior above supercritical conditions.