Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Study on Natural Circulation System under Various Cooling Mediums

Yumei Lv¹, Wei Dai², Shupeng Xie¹, Peng Hu^1,*, Fei He^1,*

1 CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, China
2 Beijing Institute of Astronautical Systems Engineering, Beijing, 100076, China

* Corresponding Authors: Peng Hu. Email: ; Fei He. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Fluid Flow, Heat and Mass Transfer within Novel Cooling Structures)

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2025, 23(2), 397-420. https://doi.org/10.32604/fhmt.2025.062781

Received 27 December 2024; Accepted 07 February 2025; Issue published 25 April 2025

Abstract

Aiming at the global design issue of transpiration cooling thermal protection system, a self-driven circulation loop is proposed as the internal coolant flow passage for the transpiration cooling structure to achieve adaptive cooling. To enhance the universality of this internal cooling pipe design and facilitate its application, numerical studies are conducted on this system with four commonly used cooling mediums as coolant. Firstly, the accuracy of the numerical method is verified through an established experimental platform. Then, transient numerical simulations are performed on the flow states of different cooling mediums in the new self-circulation system. Based on the numerical result, the flow, phase change, and heat transfer characteristics of different cooling mediums are analyzed. Differences in fluid velocity and latent heat of phase change result in significant variation in heat exchange capacity among different cooling mediums, with the maximum difference reaching up to 3 times. Besides, faster circulation speed leads to greater heat transfer capacity, with a maximum of 7600 W/m². Consequently, the operating mechanism and cooling laws of the natural circulation system is further investigated, providing a reference for the practical application of this system.

---

Keywords

---