Thermal sizing design and experimental evaluation of molten salt-to-air heat exchanger

• Published in: Annals of nuclear energy 2019-10, Vol.132, p.504-511
• Main Authors: Chen, Yu-Shuang, Tian, Jian, Zhu, Hai-Hua, Xue, Jing-Yi, Tang, Zhong-Feng, Fu, Yuan, Wang, Na-Xiu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Heat exchanger experiments; Molten salt reactor; Molten salt-to-air heat exchanger; Serpentine coil cross flow heat exchanger
• ISSN: 0306-4549; 1873-2100
• DOI: 10.1016/j.anucene.2019.06.033

•High temperature air cooled molten salt heat exchanger was designed and tested.•Self-made program was developed to design the air cooled molten salt heat exchanger.•Experiments were performed to investigate the air cooled molten salt heat exchanger.•The design of air cooled molten salt heat exchanger was validated by experiments. In order to better understand the thermal performance and improve the thermal sizing design of molten salt-to-air heat exchanger, a serpentine coil cross flow heat exchanger with molten salt on tube side and air on shell side is designed and tested. A self-made program with specially selected heat transfer correlations is developed to design the heat exchanger. After that, experiments are conducted to verify the design and characterize the heat transfer behavior of the heat exchanger. Results show that the measured key parameters of the heat exchanger correspond well to the values from the self-made program. Further experimental studies on the thermal performances indicate that empirical correlations in the self-made program could adequately describe the heat transfer characteristics of the heat exchanger. Based on above studies, it is concluded that the self-made program can be well used for the thermal sizing design of molten salt-to-air heat exchanger.