I have a very high heat flux device. So can i use supercritical fluid for cool this device?What are merits and demerits of that?
Pratik,
I'm struggling to see *any* advantage!
Surely a liquid will be the densest and highest heat capacity fluid?
May I ask what heat fluxes and ambient temperatures you are facing?
Supercritical fluids has high heat capacity and also has high prendlt number. So it can useful for removing high heat flux.
For cooling of high heat flux devices we have more metlurgical limitation. So we have to cool device very repidly. so we need such system that sustain this high heat flux without failure.
But for continues high heat flux it is very difficult.
I think, it isn't a good idea to use SCF as just a coolant. You will have some technical problems (pressure, etc.) with your cooling system without any special advantages. Just use a conventional liquid coolant.
Good luck!
But for high heat flux more than 10 MW/M2 the temperature of device is greater than 1700 K and we can not cool it with conventional techniques. That's why we have to think toward SCF.
I think we can use Super-critical fluids as coolants.
In 4th Generation Nuclear power plants called High Performance Light Water Reactor or Super Critical Water Cooled Reactors use water in super-critical state to absorb heat from the core. Same thing can be applied for your application too.
If you want maximum heat transfer you should maintain your fluid near to critical point, Because near critical point the value of specific heat is very high compared to sub-critical state.
Another thing that you should note that above critical point density reduces and hence required flow rate increases. So there must be a balance between flow rate and specific heat of the fluid at that state.
This can also be considered as a demerit as you have to maintain the fluid within some temperature limits to achieve highest heat transfer. Other problem is maintaining pressure. Corrosion is also a big problem.
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