Convective heat transfer of lead-bismuth eutectic in a circular tube with half cycle heat flux

A numerical model of convective heat transfer of lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) in the receiver tube with nonuniform heat flux was built. Fluent software was utilized to investigate the heat transfer property of LBE in the receiver tube with nonuniform heat flux through solving the three dimension N-S equation and energy equation. The simulation results of this study show that modeling of turbulent prandtl number is applicable to calculate the heat transfer of LBE in the receiver tube with nonuniform heat flux. The heat flux of LBE has little influence on Nusselt number (Nu) while the mass flow rate of LBE is of crucial importance in Nu. Furthermore, Nu of adiabatic is higher than that of the heating side. Compared to the molten salt, LBE has advantages in reducing the energy loss of the receiver pipe by virtue of exceptional heat transfer performance. © 2019, Editorial Board of Acta Energiae Solaris Sinica. All right reserved.