Experimental studies on heat transfer and fluid flow of water in a vertical annulus, circulating through a cold leg forming a closed loop thermo-siphon, have been carried out in this article. The annulus has a radius ratio (outer radius to inner radius) of 1.184 and aspect ratio (length to annular gap) equal to 352. The experiments were conducted for constant heat fluxes of 1, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, and 15 kW/m². Transient behavior during the heat-up period of the system until the steady-state condition is attained and discussed. Variation in the heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number along the annulus height represent the developing boundary layer at the entrance and fully developed flow in the remaining length. A large drop in the differential pressure is experienced when the liquid is circulated through the flow meters, which restrict the flow due to their very small passages. Flow restriction causes mass accumulation and rise of pressure at the exit of the annulus. It also causes a decrease in liquid head in the cooling leg. An increase in the heat flux leads to an increase in the heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number. As a result of the data analysis correlations for the average Nusselt number, Reynolds number and circulation rate have been developed in terms of the heat flux.

Numerical and experimental analysis of natural convection subcooled boiling flow in a high aspect ratio narrow vertical annulus operating at atmospheric pressure is carried out. The computational model is developed using RPI wall boiling model. The annular gap is 3.5 mm and aspect ratio is 352. A new empirical relation for nucleation site density is developed for the present geometrical configuration and implemented in the Fluent code with the help of user-defined function (UDF). The results from the numerical analysis are then compared with the experimental results which show excellent agreement. The wall superheat is found to be maximum at the point of boiling incipience which increases with heat input. The wall temperature shows a gradual decrease in the boiling region. The average heat transfer coefficient increases almost linearly for both subcooled and saturated boiling region.

Experimental and numerical analyses have been carried out for single-phase natural convection thermally induced flow in an internally heated vertical annulus. The experiments are performed on an in-house setup having an internally heated annulus of aspect ratio 352 with the heat flux ranging from 2.5 kW/m² to 15 kW/m². Water is used as the working fluid. The numerical simulations are carried out by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model developed using the commercial software package Ansys Fluent. The results of the present analysis are then compared with the experimental data. There is an excellent agreement between the numerical and the experimental results. The contour plots are presented for temperature, velocity, and thermal boundary layer. The thermal boundary layer thickness decreases while the thermal entry length increases with heat flux. An increase in the heat flux leads to the increase in the heat transfer coefficient and the Nusselt number.