1 s2.0 S030645492100178X Main

Annals of Nuclear Energy 159 (2021) 108302
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Annals of Nuclear Energy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/anucene
Review
Review of interdisciplinary heat transfer enhancement technology for

nuclear reactor
Qi Lu a,b,⇑, Yu Liu a,b, Jian Deng a,b,⇑, Xiaowei Luo c, Zhiyong Deng b, Zhengpeng Mi b
a
Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Chengdu 610041, China
b
Nuclear Power Institute of China, Chengdu 610041, China
c
China National Nuclear Corporation, Beijing, China
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: All over the world, the nuclear reactor technology has been in the critical stage of transformation and
Received 24 January 2021 upgrading. Also, there have been the higher requirements for the key technical indicators, such as the
Received in revised form 26 February 2021 power level, the miniaturization and the security. According to analyzing the engineering requirements
Accepted 25 March 2021
of typical nuclear reactor devices, the authors demonstrated the scientific problems and the physical
Available online 19 April 2021
mechanisms behind the limitation of thermal-hydraulic parameters, such as the fuel assembly, the steam
generator, and the special safe system. Thus, the technical route of heat transfer enhancement was put
Keywords:
forward in this paper. The technology of heat transfer enhancement referred to the application of various
Nuclear reactor
Interdisciplinary
engineering means to improve the heat transfer performance of component and reduce the power con-
Heat transfer enhancement technology sumption of coolant, the component temperature, as well as the device size. In this paper, the heat trans-
Passive technology fer enhancement technology was divided into the passive technology and the active technology.
Active technology Meanwhile, the passive technology could be subdivided into the structure innovation technology and
the surface modification technology. The active technology could be subdivided into the magnetic field
technology and the electric filed technology. Based on the analyses of this paper, it was considered that
the effects of different heat transfer enhancement technologies on the single-phase and two-phase con-
ditions were quite different. Moreover, the corresponding technical development maturity and the man-
ufacturing process were also much different. First of all, the structure innovation technology mainly
included two categories: the micro-channel technology and the longitudinal vortex technology. By
increasing the specific surface area of thermal component, enhancing the turbulent mixing degree of flow
field, and disturbing the near-wall thermal boundary layer, the heat transfer performance of single-phase
and two-phase conditions could be significantly improved. The above technology had been widely
applied to many heat transfer fields, and the manufacturing technology was mature as well as diversified,
which had the strong application prospect in the field of reactor core and heat exchanger without nuclear
conditions. It should be noted that the technical difficulty of structure innovation technology lied in the
optimization of structure design to obtain the best enhanced heat transfer performance. As for the surface
modification technology, it mainly included the surface micro-nano structure technology and the surface
coating technology. Moreover, it was suggested that the structural dimensions of above two technologies
were far smaller than that of the near-wall thermal boundary layer, and the corresponding effects on the
sing-phase heat transfer condition was not obvious. However, the above two technologies could signifi-
cantly affect the bubble dynamics and the two-phase interface evolution under boiling condition, which
could obviously improve the heat transfer performance under two-phase condition. In addition, the mag-
netic field technology and the electric field technology belonged to the active heat transfer enhancement
technology, which relied on the coolant physical properties and the intervention technology of flow field.
It should be noted that the above two technologies could effectively improve the heat transfer perfor-
mance under the single-phase and two-phase conditions. However, this kind of technology was still in
the stage of scientific research, and there was no practical engineering application. Based on the current
technology development, the application of these two technologies was weak in the reactor core, and the
application in non-nuclear environment was also limited.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
⇑ Corresponding authors at: Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Chengdu 610041, China.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (Q. Lu), [email protected] (J. Deng).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2021.108302
0306-4549/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Lu, Y. Liu, J. Deng et al. Annals of Nuclear Energy 159 (2021) 108302
Nomenclature
Re Reynolds number
General symbol
g Gravitational acceleration (m/s2) Greek letters
h Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2) e Dielectric constant (F/m)
k Thermal conductivity (W/mK) q Density (kg/m3)
qe Heat flux (W/m2) r Surface tension (N/m)
De Equivalent diameter (m)
E Electric field intensity (V/m) Subscripts
Fe Electric field force (N) l Liquid-phase
Nconf Confinement coefficient g Gas-phase
Nu Nusselt number
Bond Bond number
Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Fuel assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. Steam generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Special safe system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Theory of heat transfer enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1. Field synergy theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2. Configuration theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3. Entropy minimization theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4. Entransy dissipation theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.5. Process enhancement theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. Passive heat transfer enhancement technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1. Structural innovation technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1.1. Micro-channel technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1.2. Longitudinal vortex technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.2. Surface modification technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2.1. Micro-nano structure technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2.2. Surface coating technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. Actively heat transfer enhancement technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1. Magnetic field heat transfer enhancement technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2. Electric field enhanced heat transfer technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5. Comprehensive evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6. Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Declaration of Competing Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1. Introduction reactor system. Moreover, the fuel assembly plays as the key heat
release and exchange role, and its importance is self-evident. As is
With the continuous development of reactor technology around know to all, there are three key technical indicators for the fuel
the world, the higher requirements have been put forward for the assembly.
key thermal-hydraulic indicators, such as the power level, the
miniaturization and the security. Therefore, the need to improve (1) Power-flow ratio
the heat transfer performance of various components becomes
stronger. In recent decades, the heat transfer enhancement tech- The power-flow ratio is one of the important indicators to eval-
nology has been paid much attention in the nuclear reactor field. uate the thermal-hydraulic performance of reactor system, which
It should be noted that the heat transfer enhancement technology directly determines the average temperature of core coolant and
refers to one which can increase the heat transfer coefficient under the quality of steam generator. Also, it is closely related to the com-
a certain temperature difference and heat transfer area. Mean- pactness and the miniaturization of reactor system. One of the
while, it aims to improve the thermal efficiency, reduce the power most direct ways to increase the core power-flow ratio is to
consumption, limit the component temperature, and reduce the increase the contacting area between the fuel element and the
device size. coolant. Therefore, how to further increase the specific surface area
(surface area/volume) of fuel assembly is much important. In addi-
1.1. Fuel assembly tion, the reactor outlet is generally in a sub-cooled state under the
steady-state operating conditions. Thus, the mechanism of single-
The thermal-hydraulic performance of reactor core is directly phase convection heat transfer is generally dominant. Also, it is
related to the power level, the safety, and the miniaturization of believed that the heat transfer coefficient under the single-phase
2
condition can be improved by increasing the continuous distur- two categories, one is DO (Dry Out) type, and the other is DNB
bance of coolant thermal boundary layer near the heating surface, (Departure from Nucleate Boiling) type. In this case, the DO type
so as to achieve the purpose of improving the power-flow ratio. boiling crisis generally occurs under the large quality condition,
and the corresponding flow pattern is generally the annular flow.
(2) Limit quality Also, the continuous liquid film near the heating surface is contin-
uously evaporated or transfers to liquid droplets with vapor phase
The two-phase flow instability under boiling conditions has an
disturbance. Finally, the liquid film is completely evaporated at a
important impact on the stability and safety of reactor system.
specific position of heating surface. DNB type boiling crisis gener-
Meanwhile, it has always been an important safety criterion in
ally occurs under the low quality conditions. The generation rate
the thermal-hydraulic design process. At this time, the two-phase
of bubbles is significantly greater than the departure rate, which
flow changes from the previous stable state changes to another
results in the vapor phase aggregation and prevents the surround-
stable state, or into an unstable state with significant parameter
ing liquid from wetting the heating surface. By now, although lots
oscillation characteristics. As the thermal-hydraulic parameters
of experimental studies and theoretical analyses have been carried
(flow, pressure, temperature, etc.) significantly oscillate, the
out, there is still no theoretical model that can fully explain the
mechanical components of system can present fluctuation, which
occurrence mechanism of boiling crisis, as shown in Fig. 3. As for
may further lead to the heat transfer deterioration of reactor core.
the fuel assembly, the current method of predicting boiling crisis
The authors conducted a systematic study on flow instability and
is generally dependent on the empirical relationship (Liu et al.,
formed a relatively complete classification of two-phase flow
2020). According to the research foundation of authors (Lu et al.,
instability (Lu et al., 2019), as shown in Fig. 1. It can be seen that
2019a, 2019b), it is believed that CHF can be effectively increased
the more attention should be paid to the dynamic two-phase flow
by suppressing the vapor accumulation on the heating surface
instability in the actual engineering, which reflects the dynamic
before boiling crisis occurring, and promoting the rewetting effect
interaction process among parameters such as flow, pressure,
of heating surface, as shown in Fig. 4.
and temperature. In addition, it is believed that the pressure drop
proportion of two-phase and single-phase sections can signifi-
1.2. Steam generation
cantly affect the occurrence of flow instability (Lu et al., 2020;
Hu, 2017), as shown in Fig. 2. Therefore, the authors believes that
The steam generator is a key energy transfer device connecting
the two-phase flow instability can be suppressed or eliminated by
the primary and secondary loop systems of nuclear reactor.
optimizing the phase distribution to weak the sudden variation of
According to the fluid flow mode of secondary loop in the steam
pressure drop and reduce the resistance proportion of two-phase
generator, the steam generators of pressurized water reactor can
section, or by achieving the horizontal mixing of coolant between
be divided into the natural circulation type and the once-through
different sub-channels.
type (Yan and Cao, 2010)。
(3) Critical heat flux
(1) Natural circulation steam generator
The boiling crisis phenomenon refers to the variation of boiling
Natural circulation steam generators can be divided into two
heat transfer mechanism, and the temperature of heating surface
types: the vertical type and the horizontal type. Firstly, the vertical
rapidly rises, which may leads to the burning of fuel element. At
U-type tube natural circulation steam generator is commonly used.
this time, the heat flux is called as the critical heat flux (CHF). As
The typical vertical U-type tube natural circulation steam genera-
is know to all, the boiling crisis phenomenon is usually divided into
tion is generally composed of a lower head, a tube sheet, a U-
Two-phase flow instability
Microscopic instability Macroscopic instability
Kelvin-Helmholtz Dynamic instability Static instability

instability
Rayleigh-Taylor Ledinegg
instability Fundamental Pressure drop Compound instability
dynamic instability oscillations dynamic instability
Flow distribution
Bubble collapse instability
Thermal oscillations
Flow pattern
Density-wave Thermo-acoustic transition
oscillations oscillations
Oscillations in
parallel channels Boiling crisis
Coupled neutronic Geysering

thermo-hydraulic
Type-I Type-II Type-III Flashing instabilities
Fig. 1. The classification of two-phase flow instability (Lu et al., 2019).
3
Fig. 2. The Two-phase flow instability and the two-phase interface evolution characteristics (Hu, 2017).
Droplet
After CHF sedimentation After CHF Bubbl e
boundary
Liquid Film
Droplet
Before CHF entrainment Before CHF
a) Liquid film evaporation model b) Bubble blocking model

Vapor Flim
V a p o r
V a p o r
After CHF
Micro-liquid
layer
D r y w a l l
p h a s e
p h a s e
Before CHF
B e f o r e C H FA f t e r C H FI n t e r f a
s e p e r a t
c) Micro-liquid layer evaporation model d) Interface separation model

Fig. 3. The schematic diagram of boiling crisis mechanism.
type tube bundle, a steam-water separator and a cylinder. The heat and boiling heat exchange, the steam-water mixture flows upward
flux of primary loop is driven by the circulating water pump to through the steam-water separation device, and the saturated
flow in the U-type tube bundle to transfer the heat to the sec- steam flows into the steam turbine. As the steam generator is run-
ondary working fluid. After two stages of convection heat exchange ning, the secondary fluid is driven by buoyancy to establish the
4
Fig. 4. Evolution of the liquid film at the bottom of the bubble (Lu et al., 2019).
natural circulation flow due to the density difference between the ent, and the pressure of secondary side steam is sensitive to the
single-phase fluid in descending channel and the steam-water external load, which may present the flow instability and the over-
mixture in ascending channel. As for the natural circulation steam all pulsation.
generator, there is no high requirement for the automatic control Considering the current development trend of once-through
of feed water and steam due to the buffering effect of large water steam generator, the design of smaller size and higher heat transfer
storage volume on the secondary side. However, the natural circu- efficiency is one of the most important directions in the future.
lation steam generator can just produce saturated steam. To ensure Meanwhile, the focus is to improve the heat transfer efficiency
the steam quality, the steam-water separator is necessary, which by changing the structure of heat transfer tube. The common struc-
leads to the large size. As for the miniaturization requirement of tures of heat transfer tube for once-through steam generator
nuclear reactor, the application of natural circulation steam gener- include the straight tube, the sleeve, the spiral tube, and the spiral
ator is much limited. sleeve, as shown in Fig. 5. Compared with the straight tube design,
the spiral tube not only has the significant heat exchange area
(2) Once-through steam generator between the primary and secondary working fluids, and the cen-
trifugal force generated by spiral structure is also conducive to
Compared with the natural circulation steam generator, the the uniform two-phase distribution of secondary side, which is
once-through steam generator has obvious advantages, such as conducive to the substantial improvement of boiling heat transfer
the small size, the light weight and the high heat exchange perfor- performance. At present, KLT-40S reactor of Russia (V. J., B. R. M., S.
mance. Meanwhile, the flow of secondary working fluid is driven R, 2009) and the IRIS reactor of USA (S. G. D., M. D. Carelli, 2008)
by the water pump head, and the secondary working fluid once use the once-through steam generator with spiral tube. As for
flows through the heat transfer tube, which then flows through the spiral sleeve structure, it is composed of the spiral inner tube
the preheating section, the evaporation section and the super- and the outer tube, which can form an obvious arc-shaped flow
heated section to generate the superheated steam. According to channel structure. This structure has the following advantages:
the secondary working fluid flowing outside or inside the heat 1) the inner tube and the outer tube can form the fulcrum, thus
transfer tube, the once-through steam generator can be divided the thermal expansion difference between them can be compen-
into the out-tube type and the in-tube type. Also, the in-tube sated; 2) The spiral flow of working fluid can increase the heat
once-through steam generator is the most common in the nuclear transfer coefficient. 3) The spiral inner tube can significantly
reactor. increase the tube length, thus the heat exchange area can be fur-
As for the once-through steam generator, it can directly gener- ther increased. 4) As for the arc-shaped structure, the sharp corner
ate the superheated steam with the superheat of about 20 ℃~30 ℃ can form an artificial vaporization core, which is easy to generate
and the stable pressure. Also, there is no need for dehumidification, the vapor bubbles. In the bubble form process with working fluid
which greatly reduces the requirement on the steam turbine and flowing upwards, the bubbles can continue to coalescence with
effectively improves the thermal efficiency of nuclear reactor. each other. Under the special arc-shaped structure, the coalesced
Since there is no complicated steam-water separation device, the bubbles trend to the areas with less resistance and larger cross-
structure of once-through steam generator is simple and compact. section. As a result, the working fluid in these areas correspond-
Compared with the natural circulation steam generator, the once- ingly flows to the narrow section, and fills the space left by bub-
through steam generator is more available for the limited space. In bles. In addition to flowing upward with the main flow, the
addition, the once-through steam generator has small heat storage bubbles can also produce the strong circumferential flow, this dis-
capacity and water storage capacity, thus the heating and cooling turbance in the circumferential direction is much stronger than the
processes of heating surface are easy to achieve the uniformity. circumferential flow of working fluid, which can enhance the boil-
Therefore, the once-through steam generator can quickly start ing heat transfer performance. In addition to the above advantages,
and stop, which can well meet the mobility requirements of the large arc-shaped channel has the supplement capacity of work-
nuclear reactor. However, the heat transfer situation of once- ing liquid, which can effectively prevent the heating surface from
through steam generator is more complicated than the natural cir- drying out.
culation steam generator. The once-through steam generator has
six heat transfer conditions in the secondary side, including the 1.3. Special safe system
single-phase convection, the subcooled boiling, the nucleated boil-
ing, the forced convection with evaporation, the film boiling and The special safety system is a general term for various safety
the superheated steam. Meanwhile, each heat transfer mechanism systems, which are specially set up for nuclear reactor under vari-
between the working fluid and the heating surface is quite differ- ous accident conditions and perform the safety functions to control
5
a) The schematic diagram of straight pipe structure
b) The schematic diagram of spiral tube structure
Outer tube
Arc-shaped
structure
Spiral inner tube
c) The schematic diagram of spiral sleeve structure
Fig. 5. The schematic diagram of heat transfer tube structure for steam generator (V. J., B. R. M., S. R, 2009; S. G. D., M. D. Carelli, 2008).
the accident consequences. The special safety system mainly matic diagram of typical passive waste heat removal system is
includes: the waste heat removal system, the safety injection sys- shown in Fig. 6 (Fei and Gu, 2016).
tem, and the molten material retention system. By means of summarizing the existing passive waste heat
removal system, it can be found that the existing design ideas of
(1) Waste heat removal system passive waste heat removal system mainly include two types
(Yan and Cao, 2010): 1) The direct cooling of primary working fluid
The waste heat removal system is a system used to remove the is used to export the waste heat, and the heat of primary working
waste heat of reactor core as the reactor shuts down. It is also fluid is discharged to the final heat sink according to the heat
called the shutdown cooling system, which mainly includes: the exchange device. 2) The waste heat is exported according to the
active waste heat removal system and the passive waste heat secondary side feed water cooling, namely the two-phase flow cir-
removal system. culation in steam generator. Also, it can be seen that no matter
The main function of waste heat removal system is shown as what design idea is adopted, the heat removal capacity of final heat
follows: the remaining heat of nuclear core and the sensible heat sink directly determines the performance of passive waste heat
of working fluid as well as devices can be released as for the emer- removal system. As shown in Fig. 6, there is the natural circulation
gency shutdown under normal and accident conditions. Mean- flow in heat exchange tube, and the water tank outside the heat
while, the temperature of reactor working fluid can decrease to exchange tube includes two heat transfer mechanisms, namely
the target temperature with a certain rate. The active waste heat the pool boiling heat transfer and the natural convection heat
removal system needs to rely on the supply of external energy. transfer in large space (Men, 2015).
Under the condition of the whole plant power failure, all the power
supply systems fail, and the active waste heat can not be available. (2) Safe injection system
Compared with the active waste heat removal system, the passive
waste heat removal system uses the natural principles such as the The safety injection system is also known as the emergency
gravity and convection of working fluid to make the nuclear reac- core cooling system, and its main function is to provide the cooling
tor safety, which is less dependent on the active systems such as to the nuclear reactor core under the abnormal conditions, so as to
pump and diesel engine (Zhang, 2012). Therefore, the passive maintain the integrity of fuel assembly. The safety injection system
waste heat removal system has become an important part of generally consists of the safety injection box, the high-pressure
advanced special safety system for nuclear reactor. Also, the sche- safety injection subsystem and the low-pressure safety subsystem.
6
a) The schematic diagram of passive waste heat removal system on the secondary side
b) The schematic diagram of passive containment waste heat removal system

Fig. 6. The schematic diagram of passive waste heat removal system (Fei and Gu, 2016).
Moreover, the action of safety injection system is shown as follows As for LOCA (Lack of Coolant Accident), the coolant is continu-
(Kong, 2014), as shown in Fig. 7: the high-pressure safety injection ously discharged from the primary loop into the containment, thus
system is firstly put into operation. The high-pressure safety injec- the primary loop is continuously depressurized, and the coolant
tion pump takes water from the refueling water tank and inject the volume is continuously reduced, which correspondingly causes
boron-containing water into the nuclear reactor core. As the the water level of pressure vessel to decrease below the lower
nuclear reactor pressure decreases below the pressure storage end of nuclear reactor core. As the pressure of primary loop
tank, the pressure storage tank safety injection system starts to decreases below the nitrogen pressure of safety injection tank,
feed the water injection. As the nuclear reactor pressure decreases the safety injection system starts to inject the water into the pri-
below the injection pressure of low-pressure safety injection tank, mary loop. The emergency cooling water injected by safety injec-
the pressure storage tank is emptied. Then, the pressure storage tion system reaches the bottom of nuclear reactor core. Initially,
tank is withdrawn from operation, and the low-pressure safety the nuclear reactor core is basically exposed, and a small amount
injection system is put into operation, while the low-pressure of heat is taken away by thermal radiation and natural convection.
safety injection pump draws water from the refueling water tank. Due to the release of decay heat, the temperature of nuclear reactor
It should be noted that the flow rate of low-pressure safety injec- core correspondingly rises. As for the pressurized water reactor,
tion tank is much greater than that of high-pressure safety injec- the heating rate at this stage is about 8–12 °C/s, the temperature
tion pump, namely the injection flow of high-pressure safety of fuel cladding may reach above 1100 °C. As the emergency cool-
injection system is small. As the water level of refueling water tank ing water reaches the bottom of nuclear reactor core, the reflood
reaches the low water level, the water source of low-pressure stage appears. Due to the high temperature of fuel cladding, the
safety injection pump is switched to the containment pit, thus water has been vaporized before contacting the cladding surface,
the system enters the recirculation cooling stage. which provides the initial cooling. As the temperature of fuel clad-
7
away, which can effectively cool the lower head of pressure vessel.
Under the severe accident conditions, there are three key condi-
tions for adopting the external cooling scheme of pressure vessel
and successfully implementing the retention strategy of molten
materials (Asmolov et al., 2001): 1) the reactor coolant system
has been depressurized to prevent the high-temperature creep fail-
ure and the integrity loss. 2) The molten materials of reactor core is
repositioned in the lower chamber of pressure vessel, and the
water level of reactor has reached a certain height. 3) It is neces-
sary for the reasonable design of external cooling channel, thus
ERVC circulating flow can ensure that the outer wall of vessel
can be sufficiently cooled. Therefore, the decay heat of molten
materials can be reliably discharged, and the pressure vessel can
be prevented from failing. It should be noted that this is also the
most direct link for the successful implementation of ERVC.
Since the 1950s, the international and domestic heat transfer
fields have carried out lots of researches on the heat transfer
enhancement technology. In general, the heat transfer enhance-
ment technology can be divided into the passive technology and
the active technology. The passive technology refers to the heat
transfer enhancement by just changing the physical properties of
fluid, the shape of channel and the heat structure design without
Fig. 7. The schematic diagram of safety injection system (Kong, 2014). additional power. Moreover, the active technology requires the
external power to change the fluid flow characteristics, so as to
intensityen the heat transfer performance. The passive heat trans-
ding decreases to a certain level, the water can contact the cladding
fer enhancement technology is subdivided into the structural inno-
surface, and the heat transfer coefficient is greatly increased, which
vation technology and the surface modification technology. Also,
can better reduce the surface temperature of fuel cladding. In this
the structural innovation technology is mainly divided into the
process, the surface characteristics of fuel cladding can signifi-
micro-channel technology and the longitudinal vortex technology.
cantly affect the contacting behavior of water, and the thermo-
The surface modification technology mainly includes the micro-
physical properties of water can also affect the heat taken away
nano structure technology and the surface coating technology. In
from the nuclear reactor core. In a word, these two factors deter-
addition, the authors subdivide the active heat transfer enhance-
mine the emergency cooling performance of safety injection
ment technology into the magnetic field heat transfer enhance-
system.
ment technology and the electric field heat transfer enhancement
technology. The technology route of this study is shown as Fig. 9.
(3) Molten material retention system
As the severe accidents occurs in the nuclear reactor, the 2. Theory of heat transfer enhancement
nuclear reactor core is exposed due to the loss of cooling water
and begins to heat up. The fuel assemblies are melted due to the The basic theory of heat transfer enhancement is an important
insufficient cooling, and the molten core falls into the lower cham- foundation for the application of heat transfer enhancement tech-
ber of pressure vessel. Once the pressure vessel melts and the mol- nology, which has received continuous attention in recent decades.
ten materials flow into the reactor chamber, the steam explosion As is know to all, eliminating the dead zone of flow backflow,
may happen, which can cause the temperature and pressure of enhancing the fluid disturbance and mixing, destroying the devel-
containment to increase. Finally, the containment integrity can opment of laminar boundary layer, promoting the departure of
be threatened. To mitigate the consequences of severe accidents,
the various strategies have been proposed to deal with severe acci-
dents. In-Vessel Retention (IVR) is one of the most important mit-
igation schemes of serious accident. The current IVR measures are
mainly divided into Internal Reactor Vessel Cooling (IRVC) and
External Reactor Vessel Cooling (ERVC). IRVC is to keep the integ-
rity of pressure vessel by directly injecting water into the pressure
vessel after severe accidents happening. ERVC aims to inject water
to the outside pressure vessel after severe accidents happening, so
as to fully cool the lower head and keep the molten materials in
pressure vessel.
At present, the external cooling implementation of the lower
head of pressure vessel has become the most widely used IVR mea-
sure based on the natural circulation to achieve the retention of
molten materials, which is generally called IVR-ERVC measure,
and the schematic diagram is shown in Fig. 8 (Guo, 2015). After
the severe accidents occurring, the water injection program is
started to flood the pressure vessel, and the cooling water enters
the flow channel between the lower head of pressure vessel and
the insulation layer. The cooling water is vaporized on the surface
of lower head to form the two-phase flow. In addition, the natural
circulation is established, and the heat is correspondingly taken Fig. 8. The schematic diagram of IVR-ERVC (Guo, 2015).
8
Fig. 9. The technology route of this study.
bubbles from heating surface, and inhibiting the vapor film cover- Then, Tao (Tao et al., 2002) from Xi’an Jiaotong University con-
ing heating surface can achieve the heat transfer enhancement. ducted lots of numerical calculations and experiments to verify
Additionally, increasing the heat exchange area, increasing the the field synergy theory. It was pointed out that the field synergy
average heat exchange temperature difference, and changing the theory could be used to guide the design of heat transfer devices.
heating surface characteristics can also improve the heat transfer According to the study of Liu et al. (Liu et al., 2009), the field syn-
coefficient. Although the heat transfer enhancement technology ergy theory of more physical quantities in convective heat trans-
can enhance the heat exchange between the heating surface and fer was analyzed. Therefore, the multi-field synergy theory was
the fluid, it can also increase the pressure consumption of flow pro- further proposed: the gradient coordination angle a of velocity
cess. Moreover, the increase of pressure consumption can lead to and mainstream direction velocity, the coordination angle b of
an increase of required pump power, which is not conductive to velocity field and temperature gradient field, the coordination
the energy-saving benefits. Some scholars have conducted theoret- angle h of velocity and pressure gradient could reflect the distur-
ical researches to reveal the scientific mechanisms of heat transfer bance degree of fluid, the synergy of heat consumption and the
enhancement technology, and tried to provide the theoretical guid- synergy of flow power consumption. Meanwhile, the synergy
ance for heat transfer enhancement theories. The current heat angles of convective heat transfer process could restrict each
transfer enhancement theories mainly include: the field synergy other, which explained the laws of heat transfer, flow and power
theory, the configuration theory, the entropy production mini- consumption. Recently, Liu et al. (Liu et al., 2017) constructed the
mization theory, the entransy dissipation theory, and the process constitutive relationship between the fluid flow and the pressure
enhancement theory based on flow field optimization. gradient, and established the conservation equation of mechanical
energy expressed in the pressure form. Thus, a physical quantity
2.1. Field synergy theory describing the functional force of fluid was proposed, namely the
available potential. Tao et al. (Tao et al., 2002) investigated the
Since the 1990s, Guo (Guo and Zhuang, 1992) from Tsinghua applicability of field synergy theory in the process of elliptical
University established the synergy equation based on the energy flow heat transfer, which was successfully applied to optimize
conservation, which revealed the relationship between the dot the arrangement of flat plates and the structure of bellows. More-
product of velocity vector as well as temperature gradient and over, Tao et al. (Tao et al., 2002) suggested the three major mech-
the Nusselt number (Nu). The above method was called the field anisms in the heat transfer enhancement, namely thinning the
synergy theory, which revealed the heat transfer enhancement thermal boundary layer, increasing the fluid disturbance, and
from a new perspective. Under the same Reynolds number (Re) increasing the wall velocity gradient, which could improve the
and Prandtl number (Pr), the effect of convection heat transfer synergy of the velocity field and the temperature gradient field.
was dependent on the synergy degree between the velocity vector Obviously, it could be seen that the field synergy theory was con-
and the temperature gradient, and the synergy degree between sistent with the experience of heat transfer enhancement. The
them was related to the following three aspects (Guo et al., experience is consistent. As proposed by Zhu et al. (Xiao and
2005): 1) the synergy degree is inversely proportional to the angle Jing, 2016), the local synergy angle was used to analyze the con-
value between the speed vector and the temperature gradient, vective heat transfer, which could overcome the limitations of
namely proportional to the direction consistence of them. 2) As average synergy angle evaluation method, and he also proposed
for the local position, the speed value, the temperature gradient the application criteria of incompressible flow at the conventional
value and the cosine value of them were proportional to the filed scale. In addition, there were also good application of field syn-
synergy degree. 3) The velocity and temperature distribution on ergy theory in the electric vehicle cabin (Xu et al., 2017), the liq-
each section should have good uniformity. After the field synergy uefied petroleum gas vehicle (Ou et al., 2014), and the diesel
theory proposed, a large number of scholars have conducted in- particulate filter (Deng et al., 2007).
depth researches.
9
2.2. Configuration theory temperature heat source with infinite volume, the entransy of
object would be fully derived. Meanwhile, the entransy repre-
In the 1990s, Bejan (B. A., K. J., 1988) proposed the configuration sented the heat transfer performance of object, and simultaneously
theory based on the biological evolutionary law in nature. This the- had the characteristics of energy and transfer ability. Then, Guo
ory points out that the flow system trends to provide the easier (Guo et al., 2007) proposed the entransy dissipation theory, which
path for the ‘‘flow” flowing through it, which undergoes the struc- could also be considered as the theory of minimum thermal resis-
tural evolution along the direction of time arrow. The flow system tance. As the heat transfer temperature difference was given, the
of configuration theory includes the various devices in the field of optimal result was that the entransy dissipation was the largest,
engineering technology. In addition, the ‘‘flow” of configuration which referred to maximum the heat flux. As the heat flux was
theory includes the fluid flow, the heat flow, the mass flow, the given, the optimal result was that the entransy dissipation was
current, the vehicle flow, and the information flow. According to the smallest, and the corresponding temperature difference was
this view, the configuration theory can unify lots of problems in the smallest. As for the above two cases, the equivalent thermal
different fields into the structural or path optimization problem. resistance was the smallest.
The configuration theory was firstly applied to the cooling prob- Furthermore, Liu et al (Liu et al., 2011) derived the entransy
lem of electronic component (B. A., K. J., 1988). The maximum tem- equation of transmission process, and the flow field of square cav-
perature of heating body was taken as the objective function, and ity was optimized by minimizing the entransy dissipation. Wu
the basic structural unit was optimized. Then, the several basic et al. (W. J, L. X, 2008) applied this theory to the field of radiation
structural units were assembled to obtain the first-level structural heat transfer, and it was proposed that there was partial entransy
unit, which was further optimized until the thermal conductive dissipation in the process of radiation heat transfer. Also, the
structure could completely cover the entire heating region. This entransy dissipation theory could guide the optimization of radia-
gradual assembly optimization method could achieves the goal of tion heat transfer process. Wang et al. (W. S, J. G, W. J, 2018) stud-
minimizing temperature. Moreover, the configuration theory was ied the geometric parameter effect of spiral wound heat exchanger
also applied to the transportation economy, the urban water sup- on the equivalent thermal resistance. The results showed that the
ply network and the power network optimization. four geometric parameters of spiral angle, layer spacing, tube spac-
ing, and outer diameter were inversely proportional to the equiva-
2.3. Entropy minimization theory lent thermal resistance caused by flow, namely the entransy. Also,
Yuan et al. (Yuan and Chen, 2011) optimized the energy utilization
As is known to all, the second law of thermodynamics is widely efficiency of indirect evaporative cooling system by means of
applied to the various thermal systems for the irreversible analy- entransy dissipation theory.
ses. Thus, Bejan et al. (B. A., 1979) applied it to the analyses of heat
transfer process, the expression of volume entropy production rate 2.5. Process enhancement theory
was proposed. The irreversibility of convective heat transfer pro-
cess included the temperature difference heat transfer and the vis- In recent years, the process enhancement method based on flow
cous flow resistance. These two sources were different and could filed optimization has been applied to the convection transfer pro-
affect each other. Meanwhile, the reduction of one irreversibility cess. With the specific constraints and the objective function as the
would lead to the increase of another irreversibility. Therefore, theory core, the flow field is adjusted and the transfer process is
the purpose of convection heat transfer optimization was to reduce artificially made. By now, this optimization method has been
the sum of these two irreversibility. applied to the fluid flow resistance reduction and the mass transfer
After the principle of volume entropy generation rate in the enhancement (Jia et al., 2012; C. Q., W. M., P. N., 2009).
field of heat transfer, the irreversible analyses of heat transfer pro- As the core of flow field structure optimization, the objective
cess have been widely studied. Zhu et al. (Zhu and Yu, 2017) opti- function directly determines the optimization direction of flow
mized the heat sink structure of thermoelectric cooler by the structure. The convective heat transfer process is taken as an
principle of minimum entropy generation, and the cooling liquid example, the typical thermodynamic optimization methods
with suitable heat capacity was selected. Also, Zhao et al. (Zhao include the entropy minimization theory and the entransy dissipa-
et al., 2017) optimized the geometric structure of rectangular tion theory. The flow field optimization needs to consider the
finned elliptical tube by the entropy generation analysis. The fluid mechanical energy loss (namely the pressure drop) caused by the
flow and the heat transfer characteristics of finned elliptical tube in flow. Therefore, the mechanical energy loss is generally considered
different arrangements were studied, and a structure was obtained as a constraint condition in the optimization process. From the
based on the minimization entropy generation. Vargas et al. above two views, it can be seen that the optimization of flow field
(Vargas and Bejan, 2000) studied the boiling heat transfer with dif- can be transformed into a target extremum problem with con-
ferent temperatures, and the fluid mass flow ratio was optimized straints. By solving the target extremum problem, the correspond-
by this principle. Sahiti et al. (Sahiti et al., 2008) applied the ing optimal flow field can be obtained. The specific flow field
entropy minimization theory to the structural optimization of obtained by this theory could provide a direct basis for the optimal
pin–fin heat exchanger, including the length of pin–fin and the design of device structure (Li et al., 2014; M. J. A., L. X. G., L. Z. X.,
number of subchannels. Cui et al. (Cui et al., 2010) analyzed the 2005). This process enhancement method based on optimizing
heat exchange performance with multiple fluids according to the flow field can provide a new optimization method. Firstly, the opti-
entropy minimization theory, and the influence of channel mal flow field structure is constructed from the objective function,
arrangement on the entropy generation was studied. and then the best equipment structure is searched from the per-
spective of optimizing flow field, so as to avoid the empirical com-
2.4. Entransy dissipation theory paring method in the past.
From the above analyses, it can be seen that the reasonable flow
Guo (Guo et al., 2007) also defined a heat transfer potential field structure can promote the heat exchange between the fluid
capacity, namely entransy, whose physical meaning was explained and the wall. In addition, the second law of thermodynamics points
as follows: an object could be regarded as a container for storing out that the irreversibility is the decline result of heat conversion
heat energy, and its potential energy could be analogous to the efficiency. Although the convective heat transfer process is not a
electric potential energy. As the object contacted with the low- typical heat conversion process, the entropy production (namely
10
the irreversibility degree) of system or process is closely related to the channels with diameters of 1.10 mm and 2.01 mm presented
the convective heat transfer. Thus, the process can be obtained the typical characteristics of micro-channel, while the channels
indirectly from the entropy production information of system. with diameters of 2.88 mm and 4.26 mm presented the obvious
Guo (Guo, 2015) suggested that the entropy production of convec- characteristics of conventional channel. Nevertheless, Ribatski
tive heat transfer process consisted of two parts: the flow entropy et al. (Ribatski et al., 2006) believed that the above criteria could
production and the heat transfer entropy production. The flow not reflect the scale influence of channel on the physical mecha-
entropy production was related to the flow field structure and nism, and the difference of two-phase flow and heat transfer char-
was caused by fluid overcoming shear stress. Also, the heat transfer acteristics between them should be taken into account. In addition,
entropy production was related to the temperature field, which Thome (Thome, 2004) suggested that the criterion for the micro-
was caused by the irreversibility of heat transfer. Therefore, Guo channel should consider the separation diameter of bubble and
(Guo, 2015) proposed that under a given viscosity dissipation, the restriction effect of channel wall. Furthermore, Kew and Corn-
the continuity equation and the energy balance equation were well (Kew and Cornwell, 1997) selected the restriction coefficient
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
simultaneously satisfied, and the heat transfer entropy production (N conf ¼ gðq rq ÞD2 ) as the criterion for these two channels. Under
l g e
could reach the extreme value by adjusting the flow field structure.
The heat transfer tube structure and the temperature field distribu- the atmospheric pressure, the channel could be defined as the con-
tion characteristics obtained by this optimization theory were ventional channel for Nconf < 0.5 (namely De > 5 mm). Also, the
shown in Fig. 10. channel could be defined as the micro-channel for Nconf > 0.5
(namely De < 5 mm) . Then, Cheng (Cheng and Wu, 2006) et al. pro-
posed the boundary between these two channels based on Bond
3. Passive heat transfer enhancement technology number. As for Bond > 3 (Dh > 4.34 mm) under the atmospheric
pressure, the channel could be defined as the conventional runner,
3.1. Structural innovation technology which could be conversely considered as the micro-channel.
Although there were many methods to divide the micro-channel
3.1.1. Micro-channel technology and the conventional flow channel, no matter which kind of defini-
It is believed that the micro-channel can significantly enhance tion method, the two-phase characteristics in micro-channel were
the heat transfer performance compared with the conventional different from the conventional channel. For example, since the
channel. On the one hand, since the volume is the cube of charac- surface tension in the micro-channel was more significant than
teristic length, and the surface area is the square of characteristic other forces, the integrity and the fluctuation of two-phase inter-
length, it can be seen that the ratio of surface area to volume is face in micro-channel were better than the conventional channel
inversely proportional to the characteristic length. Therefore, the (Lu et al., 2015). In addition, the bubble could quickly grow up in
micro-channel has the large ratio of surface area to volume. On the micro-channel to contact the channel wall, which further pro-
the other hand, for the single-phase laminar flow in geometrically moted the coalescence of surrounding bubbles. Moreover, the coa-
similar channels, Nu = hDe/k = constant, the heat transfer coeffi- lesced vapor slugs could cover the heating wall and block the flow
cient can be obtained, which is inversely proportional to the char- channel.
acteristic length, so the micro-channel has the large convective As is well known, there are two main mechanisms for flow boil-
heat transfer coefficient. In addition to the above-mentioned ben- ing heat transfer in micro-channels: the nucleate boiling heat
efits under the single-phase flow condition, the micro-channel transfer and the forced convection heat transfer with evaporation.
technology exhibits the significant heat transfer enhancement per- Charnay et al. (Charnay et al., 2015) suggested that the nucleate
formance under the boiling conditions (Zan, 2013). boiling heat transfer was closely related to the bubble formation
However, there is still no consensus on the scale definition of on the heating wall, which was significantly affected by the heat
micro-channel (Kandlikar, 2002). It was believed that the scale flux and the system pressure. Also, the forced convection heat
limit between the conventional channel and the micro-channel transfer with evaporation mainly depended on the heat transfer
was 3 mm. However, Mehendal et al. (Mehendale et al., 2000) con- of micro liquid film and the evaporation of two-phase interface.
sidered the size of 6 mm as the boundary between them. According Thus, the heat transfer performance was mainly dependent on
to the research of Chen et al. (Chen et al., 2006), it was found that the flow rate and the quality. Meanwhile, Tran et al. (Tran et al.,
a) The heat transfer tube structure b) The temperature field distribution characteristics
Fig. 10. The heat transfer tube structure and the temperature field distribution characteristics (Guo, 2015).
11
1996) proposed that the transition point of nucleate boiling heat influence on the heat transfer coefficient. By means of experimen-
transfer and forced convection heat transfer with evaporation tal investigation in micro-channel, Pan et al. (L., M., C. He, 2002)
was mainly determined by the wall superheat. Moreover, the concluded that the boiling heat transfer enhancement in micro-
nucleate boiling heat transfer mainly occurred under the condition channel was mainly due to the disturbance of bubble on the sur-
of high wall superheat, while the forced convection heat transfer rounding fluid. Moreover, Guo and Zhu (Guo et al., 2007) proposed
with evaporation mainly appeared with low wall superheat. How- that the channel scale reduction could restrict the bubble growth,
ever, Vlasie et al. (Vlasie et al., 2004) and Collier-Thome (Collier which could promote the coalescence with the neighboring bub-
and Thome, 1996) found that the these two boiling heat transfer bles. As the bubbles took away lots of heat in the sliding process,
mechanisms could coexist under the specific working conditions, they also took away the bubbles attached on the heating wall,
and the heat transfer coefficient was simultaneously determined which further promote the bubble renewal. However, a large
by parameters, such as flow rate, system pressure, and quality. amount of bubbles would block the flow channel and worsen the
Additionally, some researchers (Tran et al. (Tran et al., 1996), Bao heat transfer performance under the condition of higher heat flux.
et al (Bao et al., 2000) and Ali et al. (Ali et al., 2011) concluded that This conclusion was inconsistent with the results of Passos et al. (J.
the heat transfer coefficient in micro-channel just depended on the C. P., F. R. H., L. F. B. P, M. B., M. M, 2004) and Misale et al. (M. M, P.
heat flux, which was not significantly related to the flow rate of A. G. G, 2011). In addition, Xia et al. (Xia et al., 1996) proposed that
working fluid and the quality. That is to say, the nucleate boiling there was an optimal scale for the flow boiling heat transfer in the
heat transfer in micro-channel could play a major role. However, micro-channel, which was not conducive to the heat transfer per-
Lin et al (Lin et al., 2001) suggested that both of the nucleate boil- formance as the channel scale was too large or too small.
ing heat transfer and the forced convection heat transfer with
evaporation would occur in the micro-channel. Similar to the con- 3.1.2. Longitudinal vortex technology
clusions of Lin et al. (Lin et al., 2001), Huo et al. (Huo et al., 2004) The longitudinal vortex technology refers to the improvement
used R134a as the experimental fluid to study the boiling heat of the flow channel structure or the thermal component form
transfer in micro-channel. It was found that the nucleate boiling according to series of processing and manufacturing processes, so
heat transfer could play a major role with the channel diameter as to achieve the forced mixing of coolant and the significant dis-
of 2.01 mm and the quality less than 20% to 30%. As for the turbance of thermal boundary layer. As the fluid flows across the
micro-channel with diameter of 4.26 mm and the quality less than obstacle, the vortexes can be generated in the downstream space,
40%~50%, the nucleate boiling heat transfer could be dominant. which includes the transverse vortex whose rotation axis is per-
With the further in-depth research, Kew and Cornwell (Kew and pendicular to the main flow direction, and the longitudinal vortex
Cornwell, 1997) found that the nucleate boiling heat transfer whose rotation axis is consistent with the main flow direction. The
played a major role in the isolated bubbly flow area. As the bubbles above phenomena can promote the momentum and energy mixing
occupied the entire channel, namely the flow pattern transforming between the mainstream and the fluid near wall, which can further
into the slug flow, the relationship between the heat transfer coef- strengthen the turbulence and the disturbance of thermal bound-
ficient and the heat flux was no longer obvious. As the flow pattern ary layer. Therefore, the heat transfer enhancement can be
gradually transferred from the slug flow to the annular flow, the achieved. Moreover, the studies have shown that if the lateral size
boiling heat transfer mechanism mainly presented the characteris- of obstacle is limited and is suitable for the incoming fluid angle,
tics of forced convection heat transfer with evaporation. Karayian- the generated vortex will follow the mainstream movement to
nis et al. (Karayiannis et al., 2012) also found that the boiling heat form a series of ordered longitudinal vortexes, which will greatly
transfer mechanism gradually evolved from the nucleate boiling enhance the heat transfer performance. Moreover, the longitudinal
heat transfer to the forced convection heat transfer with evapora- vortex technology has been widely used in the field of nuclear
tion as the heating section length increased. Also, Sumith et al. reactor.
(Sumith et al., 2003) suggested that as the flow pattern transferred
to the annular flow in micro-channel, the boiling heat mechanism (1) Fuel assembly field
transferred from the nucleate boiling heat transfer to the forced
convection heat transfer with evaporation. As the liquid film of At present, most of the fuel assemblies in commercial nuclear
annular flow was thick enough, there would be the nucleate boil- power plants are designed with the cylindrical fuel bundle struc-
ing inside the liquid film. Kasza et al. (K. K. E, D. T, W. M. W, ture, as shown in Fig. 11a. The sub-channels of this open bundle
1997) found there was the obvious thin liquid film between the type fuel assembly are connected to each other, which can promote
vapor phase and the heating wall in the micro-channel under the the lateral fluid mixing and the homogenization of fluid tempera-
conditions of slug flow as well as annular flow, and the existence ture distribution. It should be noted that this type of fuel assembly
of nucleate boiling phenomenon could be observed. Moreover, structure can also eliminate the two-phase flow instability from
Balasubramanian and Kandlikar (B. P, K.S. G, 2005) concluded that the perspective of physical mechanism. Since increasing the heat
the nucleate boiling could occur in both of the mainstream and the transfer area per unit volume of fuel assembly is an effective
micro liquid layer in the micro-channel, and the bubble generation way, the annular fuel assembly with double-sided cooling charac-
frequency in the micro liquid layer was higher than the indepen- teristics has been proposed (as shown in Fig. 11b). It can be seen
dent bubble generation frequency in the mainstream. that the annular fuel rod can effectively reduce the radial thermal
In addition, a large number of studies had shown that the resistance and the maximum temperature of pellet. Meanwhile, it
micro-channel could significantly improve the flow boiling heat can also increase the convection heat transfer area between the
transfer performance. Owhaib et al. (Owhaib et al., 2004) found fuel assembly and the fluid. Thus, the power density and the safety
that the reduction would lead to the increase of heat transfer coef- margin of the fuel assembly can be improved. By means of further
ficient. Meanwhile, Yan and Lin (Yan and Lin, 1998) pointed out reducing the fuel rod spacing, the tight-lattice fuel assembly (as
that the heat transfer coefficient in micro-channel was 30% to shown in Figu. 11c) can be formed, which thereby achieves the lar-
80% higher than the conventional runner. Also, it was suggested ger heat transfer area compared with the traditional rod bundle
that the heat transfer coefficient in micro-channel was about 15% fuel assembly. According to the previous discussion, another way
higher than that of conventional channel (Shen et al., 2001). Mean- to effectively improve the thermal-hydraulic performance of fuel
while, Sobierska et al. (Sobierska et al., 2007) proposed that the assembly is to enhance mixing effect of fluid in the sub-channels
reduction of channel scale would significantly enhance the quality of fuel assembly. Thus, most of the rod-bundle fuel assemblies
12
a) Bundle fuel assembly
b) Annular fuel assembly
Dw
Dr
c) Tight-lattice fuel assembly d) Tight-lattice fuel assembly with helical wire
e) HCF assembly
Fig. 11. The application of longitudinal vortex technology in the field of fuel assembly (McKrell et al., 2010).
are designed with the positioning grids with mixing vanes. Also, basis of tight-lattice fuel assembly, the spatial self-positioning fuel
these special structure can position the fuel rod and can effectively rod can be realized by means of the design of wire structure, which
enhance the mixing degree of fluid, as shown in Fig. 11a. On the further realizes the continuous mixing along the flowing direction,
13
as shown in Fig. 11d. Combined with the above advantages of fuel tics and CHF, a large number of experiments and numerical studies
assembly structures, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) had been carried out (Koroush, 2016). The centrifugal effect gener-
proposed an innovative design of HCF (Helical Cruciform Fuel) ated by swirling flow could promote the bubble separation from
(McKrell et al., 2010), and the schematic diagram is shown in the heating wall, which was beneficial to enhance CHF of HCF
Fig. 11e. Obviously, it can be seen that during the spiral period of assembly. As the flow pattern in HCF assembly was the annular
fuel rod (b = 0° ~ 90°), the tips of adjacent fuel rods are contact with flow, the swirling effect would cause the liquid film to be destroyed
each other to achieve the spatial self-positioning without addi- in advance, which could worsen the heat transfer performance.
tional positioning grid. Moreover, HCF assembly has the open Based on VOF (Volume Of Fluid) two-phase flow model, Shirvan
structure characteristics of traditional rod-bundle fuel assembly, (K. S, 2016) compared the motion characteristics of a single bubble
which can fully eliminate the two-phase flow instability. Mean- in the conventional rod-bundle fuel assembly and HCF assembly.
while, the helical cladding structure of fuel rod can produce the The research showed that the bubble dynamics on the surface of
continuous mixing effect on the fluid in sub-channels in the whole HCF fuel rod were affected by the swirling flow field and the helical
flow process. In addition, the HCF fuel rod has the larger heat trans- heating surface. Moreover, the most typical feature was that the
fer area compared with the traditional rod-bundle fuel assembly. bubble on the surface of HCF fuel rod would slip over a long dis-
The relevant studies had shown that if HCF assemblies were used tance, and this bubble behavior would introduce a new boiling
to replace the those of Westinghouse AP1000 PWR (Pressurized heat transfer mechanism and enhance the nucleation core. Accord-
Water Reactor), the core temperature at maximum linear power ing to the existing boiling heat transfer experiments for HCF
density could be reduced by about 600 °C, which could greatly assembly, the swirling flow field generated by helical structure
increase the thermal safety margin of fuel assembly. Conversely, could effectively increase CHF (Yan, 2019). Also, Bolshakov et al.
the HCF assemblies could increase the core power density by about (B. V. V., B. S. M., K. L. L., 2007) used the 3 3 rod bundle of HCF
20%-45% with the same safety system and safety limits, which assembly to conduct CHF experiment under the working condition
could significantly improve the nuclear reactor economy (C. T. of 15.7 MPa. The study showed that CHF of HCF assembly with high
M., M. T. J., K. M. S., 2014). In view of the unique thermal perfor- quality was about 10% larger than that of the cylindrical rod-
mance advantages of HCF assembly, Lighting Bridge company bundle assembly, but CHF of HCF assembly with low quality was
and Framaton company had conducted in-depth research on it, about 10%-25% smaller than that of the cylindrical rod-bundle
and they planned to use the HCF assembly for the large PWR of assembly. The reason for the above phenomenon might be that
Westinghouse and the small nuclear reactor of NuScale (M. J, T. the temperature measurement point could note accurately capture
A, S. N, 2012). Also, some companies in USA and France had com- the dry point, or it might be attributed to the uneven heat flux due
pleted the design and the manufacture of HCF assembly, which to the heating rod circumference.
was expected for engineering application in recent years.
At present, a large number of numerical and experimental stud- (2) Non-nuclear heat exchange device
ies had been carried out on the swirl flow of HCF assembly and its
influence on the mixing characteristics between sub-channels There are also many applications of structural innovation tech-
(Agbodemegbe et al., 2016). According to the numerical research nology in the field of non-nuclear heat exchange device. Ma et al.
conducted by Krauss and Meyer (Krauss and Meyer, 1996), it was (Ma et al., 2011) applied the longitudinal vortex in the laminar flow
found that the obvious fluctuations of fluid velocity and temperature zone to increase the heat transfer coefficient by up to 100.9%, while
in the side channels were mainly attributed to the heat and momen- the frictional resistance coefficient increased by only 11.4%. In the
tum exchange with the central channels. By means of PIV (Particle turbulent flow zone, the longitudinal vortex could achieve the heat
Image Velocimetry) technology, Xiong et al. (Xiong et al., 2020) transfer enhancement by more than 87.1%, while the friction resis-
investigated the development process of swirl vortex induced by tance obviously increased by 100.3%. Huang et al. (Huang et al.,
helical wire. Also, McClusky et al. (Holloway, 2002) suggested that 2011, 2013) suggested that the longitudinal vortex could increase
the attenuation rate of vortex in the rod bundle channel was signif- the boiling heat transfer coefficient by 1.1%~25.8% compared with
icantly greater than that in HCF assembly. Then, Shen et al. (Shen the smooth channel. Also, the corresponding bubble distribution
et al., 1991) observed the significant cross-flow phenomenon caused was more uniform under the action of longitudinal vortex, and
by helical wire based on LDV (Laser Doppler Velocimetry) technol- the boundary was is obviously thinned or destroyed. These reasons
ogy, and the generated swirl vortex would significantly enhance were the main factors leading to the heat transfer enhancement.
the lateral mixing between sub-channels. Moreover, Ikeda and Meanwhile, Wang et al. (Wang et al., 2007) proposed that under
Hoshi (I. K, M. H, 2006) installed LDV in a experimental rod coated the same mass flow, pressure drop, and pump power, the longitu-
with optical fiber to observe the swirling vortex and the lateral mix- dinal vortex structure of alternate arrangement had better heat
ing caused in HCF assembly. Conboy et al. (C. T. M., 2007) measured transfer performance than the central arrangement. Also, Meng
the single-phase flow resistance and the mixing characteristics test et al. (M. J. A., L. X. G., L. Z. X., 2005) designed the heat transfer tube
of HCF assembly, and it was found that the corresponding drag coef- with double diagonal rib, as shown in Fig. 12a. The results showed
ficient was about 10% lower than that of rod-bundle assembly. How- that the fluid was disturbed by the double diagonal rib to produce
ever, the above phenomena were affected by the swirling flow field, the longitudinal swirling flow, and the convective heat transfer
and the pressure distribution on the cross section of HCF assembly performance was significantly improved. Moreover, the tapered
was relatively uneven. As for the sub-channels of tight-lattice fuel tube (as shown in Fig. 12b) had been investigated, and its heat
assembly, the experimental and numerical studies had confirmed transfer performance was nearly 4 times that of smooth round
that there was a large-scale periodic vortex structure in the gap tube (R. L. W., 2009). Xu et al. (Xu et al., 2016) found that there
regions between fuel rods, which could also effectively enhance was a vortex structure in the rear area of helical rib tube, which
the inter-rod mixing intensity (Lee et al., 2014). As for the single- could periodically disturb the fluid, which thereby improved the
phase flow pressure drop of 5 5 rod-bundle channel for HCF heat transfer performance, as shown in Fig. 12c. Wang et al. (W.
assembly, the flow resistance coefficient was obtained by Conboy W., Z. Y., L. B., 2018) researched the heat transfer enhancement
(McKrell et al., 2013), and the mixing coefficient of HCF assembly performance of laterally convex tube, as shown in Fig. 12d. It
was calculated by the thermal mixing method. was found that the fluid would present a jet effect while flowing
Since the two-phase distribution characteristics in the fuel through the ripples, and these ripples would regularly disturb
assembly could directly affect the boiling heat transfer characteris- the flow boundary layer. In addition, the formed swirl flow could
14
a) Double diagonal rib tube [41] b) Tapered rib tube [92]
c) Helical rib tube [93] d) Laterally convex tube [94]
e) Transverse concave tube [95]

Fig. 12. The ribbed heat transfer tube (M. J. A., L. X. G., L. Z. X., 2005) (R. L. W., 2009; Xu et al., 2016; W. W., Z. Y., L. B., 2018; S. M, Z. M, 2018).
suppress the pulsation and the secondary flow, which correspond- showed that the cross-sectional variation of this tube could induce
ingly reduced the flow resistance. Sun et al. (S. M, Z. M, 2018) stud- the multiple longitudinal vortexes, which was in favor of the heat
ied the flow and heat transfer performance in the transversely transfer enhancement. Compared with the above heat transfer
concave tube were studied, and its structure was shown in tubes, the cross-zoomed elliptical tube could enhance the heat
Fig. 12e. It was found that the heat transfer and the flow synergy transfer while the flow resistance less increasing. Also, Sajadi
of it was better than the smooth tube. et al. (S. A. R, Y. D. S, A. D, 2014) compared the heat transfer perfor-
In addition to the above mentioned ribbed heat transfer tube, mance and the flow resistance of cross-zoomed elliptical tube, flat
the surface groove is also an effective structural innovation tube, and round tube. It was found that the cross-zoomed elliptical
method. In general, the flow resistance of surface groove tubes is tube presented the best heat transfer enhancement performance.
relatively small. Pirbastami et al. (P. S, M. S. F, M. S. G, 2016) Moreover, Tan et al. (T. X. H, Z. D. S, Z. G. Y, 2013) studied the flow
numerically studied the heat transfer enhancement performance and heat transfer performances of tube side and shell side for the
of helically outer grooved tube, as shown in Fig. 13a, and the influ- twisted tube, as shown in Fig. 14b. The results showed that there
ence of groove spacing on the heat transfer as well as the friction was a secondary flow in the twisted elliptical tube, which changed
factor was paid much attention. Also, Bilen et al. (B. K, C. M, G. H, the speed and temperature of fluid in this tube, and reduced the
2009) investigated the effects of circular groove, rectangular synergy angle between the temperature gradient and the velocity
groove, and trapezoidal groove on the heat transfer performance, vector. Thus, the heat transfer performance could be obviously
as shown in Fig. 13b. It was found that the groove structure could improved. Next, Jin et al. (J. Z. J, C. F. Q, G. Z. X, 2017) proposed a
effectively improve the heat transfer performance of heat transfer new type of six-head spiral corrugated tube, as shown in
tube, which had been increased by 63%, 58% and 47% respectively. Fig. 14c. Also, the effects of geometric parameters, Reynolds num-
Moreover, Aroonrat et al. (A. K, J. C, 2013) researched the flow and ber and fluid physical properties on the heat transfer performance
the heat transfer performance of fluid in the helically inner were studied. It was found that the heat transfer coefficient
grooved tube, as shown in Fig. 13c. Compared with the smooth decreased as the pitch increased. Meanwhile, the secondary flow
tube and the straight grooved tube, the heat transfer performance velocity and the longitudinal vortex intensity increased as the spi-
of helically grooved tube greatly increased. Also, the heat transfer ral depth increased.
performance enhancement was much more significant compared Moreover, inserting a spoiler element in the tube is regarded as
with the resistance increase. a common method to enhance the heat transfer performance. Since
Additionally, the special-shaped tube has begun to be widely the spoiler element is easy to install and remove, this method has
used in the various heat exchange devices in recent years. Meng been widely used in the field of heat transfer enhancement. The
et al. (M. J. A., L. X. G., C. Z. J., 2005) designed a new type of inserted spoiler element has a disturbing effect on the flow fluid
cross-zoomed elliptical tube, and the corresponding structure and promotes the fluid mixing. However, the turbulence can also
was shown in Fig. 14a. Meanwhile, the experimental results increase the flow resistance. At present, there are many types of
15
a) Helically outer grooved tube [96]
b) Round, rectangular, trapezoidal grooved pipes [97]
c) Helically inner grooved tube [98]

Fig. 13. The heat transfer tube with groove (P. S, M. S. F, M. S. G, 2016; B. K, C. M, G. H, 2009; A. K, J. C, 2013).
vective heat transfer coefficient. As the thickness of twisted ele-

ment increased, the convective heat transfer coefficient
correspondingly increased. However, the thickness increase of
twisted element would lead to the increase of friction coefficient.
Moreover, Eiamsa-ard et al. (E.-A. S, W. K, E.-A. P, 2010) designed
a winged twisted tape, as shown in Fig. 15b, and the twisted tape
with inclined wings had the better heat transfer performance than
a) Cross-zoomed elliptical tube [99]
the twisted tape with straight wings. Then, Eiamsa-ard et al. (E.-A.
S, T. C, E.-A. P, 2010) researched the effect of double-twisted tape
on the heat transfer performance, as shown in Fig. 15c. It was
found that these two twisted tapes with the same interpolated
swirl direction had larger heat transfer coefficient of 12.5%~44.5%
than traditional twisted tapes. Also, Eiamsa-ard et al. (E.-A. S, Y.
K, N. K, 2012) proposed the helical twisted tape inserted in the heat
b) Twisted elliptical tube [101] transfer tube, as shown in Fig. 15d. The study shown that the heat
transfer performance of helical twisted tape was worsen than the
traditional spiral sheet, but the former presented the higher overall
performance. In addition, Samruaisin et al. (S. P, C. W, T. C, 2018)
investigated the heat transfer enhancement performance of double
twisted tapes arranged with regular interval, as shown in Fig. 15e.
Also, Bhuiya et al. (B.M.M. K, C.M.S. U, S. M, 2013) inserted the per-
forated twisted tape into the heat transfer tube to study its heat
c) Six-head spiral corrugated tube [102] transfer enhancement performance, and the structure was shown
in Fig. 15f. Eiamsa-ard et al. (E.-A. S, P. P, 2005) further studied
Fig. 14. Special-shaped heat transfer tube (M. J. A., L. X. G., C. Z. J., 2005) (T. X. H, Z. the heat transfer enhancement performance of interpolated helical
D. S, Z. G. Y, 2013) (J. Z. J, C. F. Q, G. Z. X, 2017).
coil, as shown in Fig. 16a. Meanwhile, it was shown that the con-
vective heat transfer performance of three tubes with interpolated
inserted spoiler element including the twisted tape, the helical helical fin was 1.6 times, 1.5 times and 1.45 times than that of
sheet and the helical coil. Esmaeilzadeh et al. (E. E, A. H, N. A, smooth tub. Gunes et al. (G. S, O. V, B. O, 2010) also suggested that
2014) studied the heat transfer enhancement effect of twisted the helical coil with equilateral triangle inserted into the tube
tape, and the structure could be seen in Fig. 15a. The results could enhance the convective heat transfer performance, as shown
showed that the inserted spoiler element could improve the con- in Fig. 16b. Zhang et al. (Z. C, W. D, Z. Y, 2015) studied the compre-
16
Fig. 15. The heat transfer tube with inserted twisted tape (E. E, A. H, N. A, 2014; E.-A. S, W. K, E.-A. P, 2010; E.-A. S, T. C, E.-A. P, 2010; E.-A. S, Y. K, N. K, 2012; S. P, C. W, T. C,
2018; B.M.M. K, C.M.S. U, S. M, 2013).
hensive performance of interpolated double helical coil tube, as immersion time included 0–600s to form different zirconium oxide
shown in Fig. 16c. It was found that the interpolated double helical microscopic surfaces. Then, the samples were baked at the temper-
coil tube had the increased heat transfer performance of 74%-178% ature of 300 °C for 6 h to remove the fluoride. Also, the scanning
and the increased resistance of 283–879% compared to the smooth electron microscope presented the significant micro-structure vari-
tube. According to the above discussions, it can be seen that ation, and the surface with small contact angle had the structural
although the above-mentioned heat transfer tubes apply the characteristics similar to the porous material. After that, the pool
macro-structural innovation technology on both sides of the tube boiling was carried out for CHF experiment. The results showed
side and the shell side, most of they increase the heat transfer area, that: as for the low contact angle (0°-10°), the capillary action could
enhance the enhance turbulence intensity, or disturb the near-wall lead to the significant improvement of droplet diffusion perfor-
boundary layer to enhance the heat transfer performance. mance, and could effectively delay the occurrence of CHF. In
2018, Haas et al. (Haas et al., 2018) treated the surface of Zr-4 alloy
3.2. Surface modification technology tube by different manufacturing processes, as shown in Fig. 17. The
morphological characteristics were obtained by using the physical
The surface modification refers to the use of chemical treat- vapor deposition, the electroplating, the mechanical rolling, the
ment, mechanical processing, coating treatment, and micro-nano wet powder sintering, and the oxidation treatment. After that, the
electroplating processing to process the surface of heat transfer low-pressure forced convection boiling heat transfer was con-
element, which can presents different wettability, roughness, or ducted for each micro-nano structure zirconium alloy tube. It was
nucleation core density. Also, the existing studies show that the shown that the increase of CHF was not only related to the surface
surface modification technology can significantly improve the heat micro-structure, but also affected by the thermal parameters such
transfer coefficient and CHF. Meanwhile, the micro-nano structure as the system pressure and the flow rate. Compared with the
technology and the surface coating technology are the hot research smooth surface before treatment, the variation range of CHF for dif-
focuses in the field of surface modification technology. ferent surface micro-nano structures was about 13% to 29%. More-
over, it was believed that the bubble dynamic behaviors led to the
3.2.1. Micro-nano structure technology above phenomena (including slipping, departure, and coalescence),
Micro-nano structure is a general term for micro-scale and which were mainly affected by material properties and surface
nano-scale structures, which mainly includes: the micro array hole, modification processes. In addition, Fong et al. (Fong et al., 2001)
the micro array pillar, the carbon nano-tube, the metal oxide nano- used the glass particles (60–180 lm) to impact the surface of zirco-
wire, the silicon nano-wire, and the nano-porous material. Ahn nium alloy tube and then applied the oxidation treatment to it.
et al. (Ahn, 2010) used the anodic oxidation treatment method to Thus, the micro-nano structure surfaces with different roughness
change the surface characteristics of Zr-4 alloy. Firstly, the sample were obtained. The pool boiling experimental results showed that:
17
cavity surface with different geometric parameters. The treated

cavity included three diameters (200 lm, 100 lm and 50 lm)
and two depths (200 lm and 110 lm). Also, the results showed
that the boiling onset temperature drift of silicon-based surface
was more obvious than that of metal-based surface. Additionally,
Zheng et al. (Zheng, 2017) used the porous material sintering
method and the mechanical processing method to prepare differ-
ent experimental surfaces (as shown in Fig. 18a), including the
original surface, the porous sintered surface, the micro-channel
surface, and the sintered spike-like surface. Meanwhile, the boiling
heat transfer curves of theses four surface structures were shown
in Fig. 18b, and the sintered peak-like surface had the characteris-
tics of vapor escape and liquid inhalation, which could promote the
a) Interpolated helical fin [109] two-phase separation and reduce the interface movement resis-
tance. Therefore, the superheat at boiling onset point could be sig-
nificantly reduced, the boiling heat transfer coefficient could be
significantly increased, and CHF could also be greatly increased.
Since then, Zheng et al. (Zheng, 2017) used different methods of
H2O2 immersion, thermal oxidation, sandpaper polishing, ammo-
nia solution immersion + n-ethane solution modification to pro-
duce the super-hydrophilic surface, the thermal oxidation surface
(enhanced hydrophilic), the hydrophilic surface, and the super-
hydrophobic surface, as shown in Fig. 19. According to the heat
b) Helical coil with equilateral triangle [110] transfer experiment results in Fig. 19, the maximum heat transfer
coefficient of super-hydrophilic surface was about 1.7 times that of
hydrophilic surface. As shown in Fig. 19, the different surface
micro-structures had little effect on the single-phase heat transfer
performance. Meanwhile, the heat transfer curve before ONB point
showed that the hydrophobicity and the single-phase heat transfer
coefficient were not positively correlated. Also, the heat transfer
performance of super-hydrophobic surface was larger than that
of super-hydrophobic surface; the heat transfer performance of
super-hydrophilic surface was similar to that of thermal oxidation
surface, and the heat transfer performance of hydrophilic surface
was poor.
Liu et al. (Liu et al., 2019a, 2019b) used the femtosecond laser
technology to process the micro-nano structure surface, as shown
c) Interpolated double helical coil [111] in Fig. 20. The results of pool boiling experiment showed that the
Fig. 16. The heat transfer tube with inserted helical coil (E.-A. S, P. P, 2005; G. S, O.
micro-nano structure surface could significantly increase CHF,
V, B. O, 2010; Z. C, W. D, Z. Y, 2015). and the improvement degree was closely related to the structure
characteristics. It was found that the increase of CHF was mainly
due to the increase of capillary action and wettability, which made
CHF presented the linear relationship with the surface roughness of the liquid easy to replenish after the bubble departure. However,
zirconium alloy tube, but this rule was no longer applicable to the the single-phase part of heat transfer curve between the micro-
oxidation treatment surface. Later, Ahn et al. (Ahn, 2010) measured nano structure surface and the smooth surface did not show the
the contact angle of Zr-4 alloy plate (49.3°), and the micro-nano obvious difference, since the micro-nano surface structure had lim-
structure surface with different contact angles were was prepared ited enhancement action on the single-phase heat transfer. In addi-
on the Zr-4 alloy surface by electrochemical deposition. It was sug- tion, Liu et al. (Liu et al., 2019) suggested that the increase of CHF
gested that CHF of pool boiling could be increased from the original was not only attributed to the capillary action of micro-nano struc-
value of 1004 kW/m2 to the maximum value of 192 kW/m2. There- ture, but also closely related to the frequency of bubble departure.
fore, it could be seen that CHF was closely related to the wettability Zhang et al. (Zhang et al., 2018) carried out the CHF experimen-
of material surface. tal study on the regularly arranged and staggered micro-structure
Lee et al. (L. C.Y., Z. B.J., K. K.J., 2012) used MEMS (Micro Elec- convex surface, as shown in Fig. 21. It should be noted that the
tromechanical System) technology to obtain four types of silicon width and length of micro-structure were 30 lm, and the height
wafers with different surface structures, and then the boiling heat was 60 lm and 120 lm. The results showed that the staggered
transfer experiment was carried out. These four types of silicon micro-structure presented the higher heat transfer coefficient
wafers included: the flat silicon wafer (F) as the reference, the and CHF, which were mainly attributed to the stronger capillary
polygonal silicon wafer (M) with the height of 6 lm and the spac- action, so as to promote the liquid-phase wetting performance.
ing of 50 lm, the silicon wafer with ZnO nano-rod (N), and the sil- Zhou et al. (Zhou et al., 2019) prepared the micro-nano surface
icon wafer with M and N (MN). Moreover, the results showed that structure by the etching process, as shown in Fig. 22, and the bub-
CHF of MN was about twice that of F, and the enhancement effect ble dynamics behaviors were experimentally studied. It was shown
of nano-rod was much obvious. Meanwhile, Lee et al. (L. C.Y., Z. B.J., that the bubbles under low heat flux would present the oscillation
K. K.J., 2012) attributed the CHF enhancement to the variation of due to the condensation phenomenon. In addition, there was a
surface contact angle and the increase of liquid diffusion capacity good linear relationship between CHF and wettability.
caused by capillary effect. Then, Chih et al. (Yu et al., 2006) inves- Wu (Wu, 2017) applied the method of CuCl2 solution chemical
tigated the boiling heat transfer performance of artificial micro- etching + fluorosilane modification + CuCl2 solution chemical etch-
18
Nanorough Hemispherical Micro-channel
Porous Oxidized
Fig. 17. The Micro-nano structure surfaces with different morphology characteristics (Haas et al., 2018).
ing to prepare the aluminum-based micro-channel with super- transfer performance. Firstly, it can effectively ensure the struc-
hydrophilic and super-hydrophobic surfaces, as shown in tural integrity of original heating surface, which mainly include
Fig. 23a. As shown in Fig. 23b and Fig. 23c, the super- as follows: the metal oxide, the nano-particle, SiO2, carbon nano-
hydrophobic surface required less energy to generate the bubbles, tube, and the graphene. Also, the coating methods generally
and the nucleation core was easier to be activated. Therefore, the include: the vapor deposition, the atomic layer deposition, the
wall superheat required for ONB (Onset of Nucleate Boiling) was splash coating, the nano-fluid boiling, the calcination, and the arc
the smallest among these three surfaces, which was only 2.86 °C. ion plating.
As the heat flux was lower than 16 kW/m2, the boiling heat transfer Kim et al. (Kim et al., 2017) achieved the hydrophobic proper-
performance of super-hydrophobic surface was the best, and the ties of heating surface according to the PTFE (Polytetrafluo-
average heat transfer coefficient was 1.15 ~ 1.32 times that of roethylene) coating. Takata et al. (Takata et al., 2006) obtained
the smooth surface. As the heat flux was higher than 25 kW/m2, the super-hydrophobicity of heating surface by nickel spraying
the generated bubbles were easy to coalesce, which prevented technology and PTFE particle. Phan et al. (Phan et al., 2009) pre-
the boiling heat transfer process, so as to resulting in the signifi- pared the hydrophilic properties by adding the silicon oxide coat-
cant reduction of thermal coefficient. As for the super- ing to the heating surface. Kim et al. (kim, 0000) made the super-
hydrophilic surface with the contact angle close to 0°, the bubble hydrophilicity of heating surface by the titanium dioxide coating.
diameter decreased, and the departure frequency increased. Thus, According to the research of Takata et al. (Takata et al., 2006), it
it could be concluded that the super-hydrophilic surface could pro- was suggested that as the surface roughness of coating reached
vide the great capillary suction, so that the heating wall could be 10 lm or less, the effect of surface roughness on boiling heat trans-
replenished in time by the liquid after the bubble departure hap- fer was much weak. Also, Hanley et al. (OHanley et al., 2013)
pening, finally the boiling heat transfer process was correspond- applied the ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) to make the porous and hydro-
ingly strengthened. philic heating surface. The results showed that the porous nature of
Dong et al. (Dong, 2014) fabricated the micro-nano structure ITO coating provided more nucleation cores. Meanwhile, the fluid
surface of micro-pillar, micro-hole, nano-pillar, and nano-pore could be transported between the nucleation core under the capil-
according to MEMS technology, as shown in Fig. 24. The results lary action, thereby enhancing the liquid rewetting effect after the
of boiling heat transfer experiment showed that the micro- bubbles departure. Wang and Dhir (Wang and Dhir, 1993) found
structure surface had the higher nucleation core compared with that the heating surface coated with TiO2 would exhibit the
the smooth surface at low heat flux. Also, the diameter decrease super-hydrophilic properties under the ultraviolet light irradiation.
of micro-cavity would increase the nucleation core, while the sur- Then, Takata et al. (Takata et al., 2006) studied the droplet evapo-
face of nano-scale structure had unobvious variation. In addition, ration on the super-hydrophilic surface. It was shown that the
the surface of nano-scale structure could increase the bubble super-hydrophilic surface coated with TiO2 had much higher CHF
departure frequency and reduce the bubble departure diameter, than the heating surface without coating anything. Moreover, the
which was mainly attributed to the capillary effect of nano- Leidenfrost temperature (namely the transition temperature corre-
structure. Under the high heat flux, the nano-structure could pre- sponding to the transitional boiling region and the film boiling
vent the formation of vapor film by delaying the bubble coales- region) could also be greatly increased. Later, Takata et al.
cence, which thereby greatly increased CHF. (Takata et al., 2006) electroplated the coating composed of nickel
and PTFE particles on the copper surface, and achieved the
3.2.2. Surface coating technology super-hydrophobic heating surface. The experimental results show
In the past few decades, many studies have used different mate- that the pool boiling characteristics of super-hydrophobic surface
rials to coat the heat transfer surface for improving the boiling heat were much different from the conventional surface. Firstly, the
19
was less than 5 nm, and the bubble nucleation always occurred
at the junction of hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions, as shown
in Fig. 25. Moreover, Betz et al. (Betz et al., 2013) conducted the
pool boiling experiment based on the hydrophilic silicon oxide
wafer and the hydrophobic silicon oxide wafer. Obviously, the
mixed hydrophilic-hydrophobic surface presented the best pool
boiling heat transfer performance, including the enhancement of
pool boiling heat transfer coefficient and CHF. Suroto et al.
(Suroto et al., 2013) also researched the pool boiling heat transfer
performance of the mixed hydrophilic-hydrophobic surface, and
obtained the similar research results as Betz et al. (Betz et al.,
2013). Meanwhile, Jo et al. (Jo et al., 2011) further investigated
the pool boiling heat transfer on the mixed hydrophilic-
hydrophobic silicon surface, and it was proposed that the
hydrophobic points on the hydrophilic surface were in favor of
the boiling heat transfer enhancement with CHF varying little.
According to the above discussions, it can be seen that whether
a) Surface structure characteristics
it is the micro-nano structure technology or the surface coating
technology, the contribution to boiling heat transfer enhancement
is mainly attributed to the hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity vari-
ation of heating surface, which can lead to the variation of bubble
dynamic behaviors. As the bubble is attached to the heating sur-
face, the bubble boundary attached to the heating wall is called
the vapor–liquid-solid three-phase contact line. Also, the wettabil-
ity of heating surface, namely the hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity,
can be measured by the contact angle between the bubble and the
heating surface (Gong, 2015). As the contact angle h is less than
90°, the heating surface is called the hydrophilic surface; on the
contrary (h > 90°), it is called the hydrophobic surface, as shown
in Fig. 26. As the contact angle is close to 0°, the heating surface
is called the super-hydrophilic surface; as the contact angle is
greater than 150°, it is called the super-hydrophobic surface
(Betz et al., 2013). Based on the previous analyses, the following
conclusions can be drawn: the hydrophilic surface is conducive
to the increase of CHF, while the hydrophobic surface can promote
the bubble nucleation and has the higher boiling heat transfer per-
formance in the low superheat region. Moreover, Hanley et al.
(OHanley et al., 2013) proposed that since the hydrophilic surface
could promote the contact area rewetting, thus CHF was signifi-
cantly improved. Kousalya et al. (Kousalya et al., 2015) found that
the nucleation core of super-hydrophobic surface had the stronger
vapor phase capture ability, so the density of nucleation point
could be greatly increased.
However, the long-lasting stability and corrosion resistance of
micro-nano surface structure under high temperature, high pres-
sure, and high flow rate coolant scouring need to be further verified
combined with the actual engineering background, especially the
corrosion product deposition and the hydrochemical effect in the
nuclear reactor. Since the thickness of surface coating is generally
only micrometers, it needs to focus on the structure stability in the
harsh fluid environment such as the thermal stress, the chemical
corrosion, and the high pressure. According to the research founda-
tion of authors, it is believed that how to improve the bonding
force of surface coating and reduce the thermal-mechanical stress
b) Boiling heat transfer curve between different materials should be paid much attention in
Fig. 18. The boiling heat transfer characteristics of different surface micro-nano
future for the engineering application.
structures (Zheng, 2017).
4. Actively heat transfer enhancement technology

super-hydrophobic surface would undergo the bubble nucleation
and the film boiling at much low superheat. Moreover, there was 4.1. Magnetic field heat transfer enhancement technology
even no nucleation boiling zone or boiling hysteresis for the boiling
curve. The magnetic field heat transfer enhancement refers to adjust-
By means of the lithography Teflon coating on silicon oxide ing the magnetic field type, direction, intensity, gradient, fre-
wafer, Betz et al. (Betz et al., 2010) made the hydrophilic and quency, position, volume fraction, Reynolds number and
hydrophobic mixed surface. The coating roughness of coating changing the physical as well as chemical properties of magnetic
20
a) Wettability b) Surface structure
c) Boiling heat transfer characteristics d) ONB characteristics
Fig. 19. The boiling heat transfer characteristics of different surface structures (Zheng, 2017).
fluid (E. E, C. R. G, F. S, R. S. A, M. N, 2016) (K. E, R. M, A. N, 2018; B. the convection effect, which in turn increased the convective heat
M, H. M, 2015). transfer coefficient. Moreover, Asfer et al. (A. M, M. B, K. A, K. S, P.
PK, 2016) researched the heat transfer characteristics of magnetic
(1) Single phase flow heat transfer fluid under the condition of laminar flow in the microchannel
(with the diameter of 2 mm) . It was suggested that the convective
Sundar et al. (S. L. S, S. M. K, S. A. C. M, 2013) conducted the sys- heat transfer coefficient of magnetic fluid under the action of mag-
tematic thermal conductivity study based on the ethylene glycol netic field was likely to increase or decrease, which was dependent
aqueous solution + Fe3O4 nano-particle magnetic fluid. The work- on many factors, mainly including the ratio of magnetic force to
ing conditions included different mass ratios of ethylene glycol inertial force, the interaction between the magnetic fluid and the
and water (20%:80%, 40%:60%, 60%:40%), different temperatures magnetic particle, and the effect of magnetic particle chain-like
(20 ~ 60 ℃), different nano-particle concentrations (0.2 ~ 2.0 vol cluster, as shown in Fig. 27.
%). The results showed that the thermal conductivity of magnetic Then, Hejazian and Nguyen (H. M, N.-T. N, 2017) proposed a
fluid increased with the concentration and the temperature. As miniature magnetic fluid device. This device contained a circular
the concentration was 2.0 vol%, the ratio of ethylene glycol to cavity (the channel depth was 500 lm, and the channel width
water was 20%:80%, the temperature was 60 °C, the thermal con- was 2 mm) with a heat source on its top, which could be used
ductivity of magnetic fluid could be increased by about 46%. In for the magnetic field heat transfer enhancement according to
addition, Newcastle University and MIT had cooperated for the the external permanent magnet. As for three cases of the ionized
effects of magnetic field intensity and uniformity on the heat trans- water, the magnetic fluid (magnetic NdFeB nano-particles + deio
fer performance under the condition of laminar flow (A. R, D. E, M. nized water, without magnetic field) and the magnetic fluid (with
T, B. J, H. LW, M. B, 2014). Also, it was shown that the local heat magnetic field), the introduction of magnetic nano-particles could
transfer coefficient increased with the increase of magnetic field improve the heat transfer performance without the magnetic field,
intensity and gradient. Meanwhile, the enhancement degree of and the enhancement degree was proportional to Re number.
convective heat transfer coefficient increased with the increase of Moreover, the addition of magnetic field was not good for the heat
Re number. Zhang et al (Z. X, H. H, W. H, 2014) numerically studied transfer at low Re number because of the magnetic secondary flow.
the magnetic turbulence with the low Re number of 600. The However, the adverse effect gradually disappeared with the
results showed that the interaction in wake area could lead to increase of Re number. Meanwhile, Kaneda et al. (K. M, T. A, O.
the variety of thermo-hydrodynamic forces under the condition H, S. K, 2015) investigated the heat transfer performance of laminar
of low separation ratio (the ratio of circumfluence distance to flow magnetic fluid (Re = 10) in the horizontal channel by the
width). However, this phenomenon did not occur under the condi- numerical simulation. It was found that the position of electromag-
tion of high separation ratio. Also, the magnetic field could make netic coil could significantly affect the flow and heat transfer effect,
21
Fig. 20. Micro-nano surface structure characteristics with femtosecond laser technology (Liu et al., 2019a, 2019b).
which could lead to the strengthening or weakening of local heat the local convective heat transfer coefficient could significantly
transfer performance. It should be noted that the strengthening enhanced as the upper edge of magnet was located at the lower
effect could only be achieved as the coil was located at the edge edge of heater. Also, the heat transfer enhancement degree would
of heating region. Also, the heat transfer enhancement was mainly weaken as the magnet position moved up, which was mainly
attributed to that the magnetic-thermal effect could make the cold attributed to the combined effect of buoyancy, gravity and mag-
fluid close to the electromagnetic coil, thereby thinning the bound- netic force. As for two magnets, the increase of local convective
ary layer. Under the condition of no gravity field, the heat transfer heat transfer coefficient was similar to the single magnet working
coefficient could increases by 10%, and the addition of gravity field condition
would increase the thermal stratification effect and further thin the
boundary layer. (2) Boiling heat transfer
Zonouzi et al. (Z. S. A, K. R, S. H, A. H, T. Y, M. M, 2018)
researched the forced convection heat transfer performance of Fe3- Naphon et al. (N. P., 2015) used the magnetic fluid of TiO2 +-
O4 + magnetic fluid in the vertical channel, and it was shown that R141b to conduct the pool boiling experiment, and the main focus
the local heat transfer coefficient increased by 23.4–48.9% while was on the factors such as the magnetic field intensity, the particle
the pressure drop just increased by about 1%. Since the magnetic concentration, the boiling pressure, and the bubble characteristics.
field could accelerate the magnetic fluid entering the region near The results showed that the boiling heat transfer coefficient was
heating wall. Also, Wang studied (Wang et al., 2019) the effect of proportional to the particle concentration as there was no mag-
magnetic field distribution on the heat transfer performance with netic field. As the magnetic field existed, the boiling heat transfer
low Re number. It was suggested that the number, the spacing, coefficient was proportional to the particle concentration and the
and the distribution symmetry of multiple magnets could affect magnetic field intensity. Moreover, Li et al. (L. S-Y., J. W-T., Z. C-
the heat transfer performance. As the magnets were adjacently Y., Z. H., T. W-Q., 2019) used the magnetic fluid of a-Fe2O33c-
arranged, the heat transfer performance was weakened. As the Fe2O3 + water (with the concentration of 0.005 ~ 0.1 g/L) to study
spacing was increased and the symmetry was maintained, the heat the heat transfer enhancement. It was shown that the magnetic
transfer performance could be enhanced. Since the the spacing field could change the concentration of local magnetic fluid and
increase could reduce the degree of particle aggregation and was conducive to the bubble generation, so as to enhance the boil-
improve the convective heat transfer performance, as shown in ing heat transfer. Also, the strengthening effect was not only
Fig. 28. Kaneda et al. (K. M, N. K, F. H, W. K, S. K, 2019) investigated dependent on the intensity and the distribution of magnetic field,
the natural convection heat transfer characteristics of magnetic but also affected by the magnetic particle magnetism and the con-
fluid in the partially vertical channels. The results showed that centration of magnetic fluid.
22
Fig. 21. The micro-nano surface structure characteristics (Zhang et al., 2018).
Fig. 22. The micro-nano surface structure with etching process (Zhou et al., 2019).
23
Smooth surface Super-hydrophilic surface Super-hydrophobic

surface
a) Surface structure characteristics
b) Boiling heat transfer curve
c) The variation characteristics of boiling heat transfer coefficient with heat flux
Fig. 23. The flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of different micro-nano surface structures (Wu, 2017).
Then, Aminfar et al. (A. H, M. M, M. R, 2014) investigated CHF of 2019) developed a new type of pulsating heat pipe based on the
Fe3O4 + water magnetic fluid in the vertical channel, and it was magnetic fluid (CoFe2O4 + water), whose heat transfer performance
suggested that the magnetic fluid had a positive effect on CHF. could be increased by 71%.
Since the particles were deposited on the wall surface to improve
the surface wettability, and the magnetic field generated by quad- 4.2. Electric field enhanced heat transfer technology
rupole magnet had the improvement effect on CHF. In general, the
magnetic effects included the nature variation of working fluid, the As another one active heat transfer enhancement technology,
unidirectional convection, the nucleate boiling suppression, the the electric field heat transfer enhancement was a method which
boiling state stabilization, as shown in Fig. 29. Subsequently, Amin- used the coupling phenomena between the electric field, the flow
far et al. (A. H, M. M, M. R, 2014) further studied the influence of field and the temperature field to enhance the heat transfer perfor-
magnetic field on the bubble departure diameter of magnetic field. mance. As early as 1916, Chubb (Chen, 2016) found that the elec-
As there was the magnetic field, the bubble departure diameter tric field could enhance the boiling heat transfer performance
was reduced by 5–10% compared with the absence of magnetic and increase the steam generation amount. In the 1950s, Kronig
field. Monroe et al. (M. J. G, K. S, F. J. D, W. K. B, B. M. J, T. S. M, et al. (Lin et al., 2007) suggested that the electric field could
24
a) Hydrophilic surface
a) Micro pillar b) Micro hole c) Nano-pillar d) Nano hole

b) Hydrophobic surface
Fig. 24. The micro-nano surface structure characteristics with MEM technology
(Dong, 2014).
Fig. 26. The definition of surface wettability (Gong, 2015).
for the working fluid to form the convection, and the electric field
force could be established to form the convection heat transfer. 5)
The low energy consumption. As for the electric field enhancement
heat transfer, the generated current was relatively weak, just at the
level of lA. It could be seen that the electric field heat transfer
enhancement technology had much large engineering application
prospect, such as the thermal control application of spacecraft.
The numerous theoretical analyses and experimental studies
suggested that although the electric field could increase the heat
transfer between molecules, the movement of single-phase dielec-
tric liquid under the electric field should be attributed to the elec-
tric convection effect (Chen, 2016) (B. E., V. J., W. L., 1962). As early
as the 1960s, Bonjour (B. E., V. J., W. L., 1962) proposed that the
electric conductivity could strongly affect the natural convection
heat transfer of organic dielectric. Later, Panofsky (Chen, 2016)
derived the equation of electric field force
h i
(F e ¼ qe E 2 E re þ 2 r E @ q q ), which laid the theoretical foun-
1 2 1 2 @e
dation for the electric field heat transfer enhancement. As for the
above equation, the first term on the right was the electrophoretic
force or the coulomb force; the second term was the dielec-
trophoretic force; the third term was the electro-induced contrac-
tion force. Moreover, these three electric field forces could affect
Fig. 25. The bubble behavior characteristics of mixed hydrophilic- hydrophobic
surface (Betz et al., 2010). the flow phenomena for the natural convection heat transfer of
single-phase fluid. If there was a temperature gradient for the
working fluid, the conductivity and dielectric constant of working
increase the convective heat transfer coefficient of insulating fluid would change with temperature, and the working fluid would
dielectric liquid. By now, the electric field heat transfer enhance- be subjected to the electrophoretic force as well as the dielec-
ment technology has attracted the much attention of scholars. trophoretic force. If the unevenness of electric field distribution
The literatures shown that the electric field heat transfer enhance- was significant, the working liquid element would move from
ment technology had the following advantages: 1) the heat trans- the location with low electric field intensity to that with high elec-
fer effect enhancement was significant. The electric field jet tric field intensity. Also, this movement speed was much larger
method could increase the heat transfer coefficient by about 100 than the movement speed of liquid during the natural convection
times, and the heat transfer enhancement effect of small tempera- process and was not affected by the temperature. It should be
ture difference was more obvious. 2) The electric field generator noted that the above phenomenon was called liquid jet under
was simple. There was just a high-voltage conversion device and the electric filed. Fig. 30 shown the liquid jet as the highly uneven
the additional electrodes required. 3) The heat flux and the wall electric field formed by the ring electrode. Up to now, the work of
temperature were easy to control. By means of controlling the volt- electric field heat transfer enhancement mainly includes two direc-
age, the local temperature and heat flux could be controlled, which tions: 1) one is the natural convection of of pure working fluid,
could also realize the automatic and remote control. 4) The electric including the heat transfer experiment and the dimensionless cri-
field could be applied to some extreme situations where the grav- terion equation; 2) the other is the phenomenon of single-phase
ity did not exist or was much weak. In this situation, it was difficult liquid jet under the action of high electric field.
25
Fig. 27. The phenomenon of magnetic particle chain cluster (A. M, M. B, K. A, K. S, P. PK, 2016).
According to the relevant references (Y. K., Yabe, 1997; was greater than that in the low electric field area. Therefore, the
SunadaK., Y. A., T. T., 1991), it could be seen that the electric field direction of resultant force pointed to the high electric field area,
could enhance the heat transfer performance of many medium, and the single-phase liquid would move to the high electric field
including R-123, R-113 and other organic substances. Didkovsky area. It should be noted that this formed force due to the non-
and Bologa (Didkovsky, 1981) investigated three types of working uniform electric field was called electrostrictive force. Meanwhile,
fluids (including ether, ethane and Freon), and it was found that Yabe (Y. K., Yabe, 1997) solved the Laplace equation, and obtained
the electric field had little effect on ethane and Freon, while the the potential distribution between the ring electrode and the plate.
electric field had a greater increase for the heat transfer of ether. It was concluded that the electric field intensity outside the ring
In addition, Yamashita et al. (Y. K., Yabe, 1997) studied the effect electrode was greater than the electric field intensity between
of electric field on the heat transfer of R123, R114 and C6F144. It them. From the perspective of charge relaxation time, since the
was suggested that the heat transfer performance of C6F144 under charge relaxation time was relatively small, the Coulomb force
the electric field was increased by nearly 4 times, and the heat could be considered as approximately zero. In the absence of tem-
transfer performance of R114 and R123 was nearly 6 times com- perature gradient, the electric field force of liquid dielectric was
pared with the heat transfer without electric field. Later, Paschke- just the electrostrictive force. Finally, Yabe (Y. K., Yabe, 1997) pro-
witz and Pratt (P. J. S, P. D. M, 2000) researched the influence of posed that the liquid jet was mainly caused by the electrostrictive
fluid properties on the electric flied heat transfer enhancement. force.
Considering the heat transfer, the pressure drop, the electric power Based on the electric field heat transfer enhancement technol-
demand, and the transition point where viscosity and electric field ogy discussed above, Chen (Chen, 2016) combined it with the
dominated, three cooling oils with different physical properties nano-fluid technology, thus a new technical route of heat transfer
were studied. The results showed that under the given electric enhancement was proposed. It was proposed that the nanoparti-
power input, the working fluid with low viscosity and low conduc- cles with electric charge would produce the directional migration
tivity had the greatest heat transfer enhancement performance. As under the action of electric field, which would move to the liquid
for the working fluid with small charge relaxation time (defined as phase, and this phenomenon was called electrophoresis. Therefore,
the ratio of dielectric constant to conductivity), it was necessary to the nano-fluid particles would be subjected to electric field force
obtain a given heat transfer coefficient with more electric power. and resulted in the migration phenomenon. Since the Brownian
Moreover, Wang et al. (Wang et al., 2005) believed that under motion of nanoparticles could not be ignored, the irregular motion
the high-voltage electric field, the heat transfer characteristics of caused by Brownian force could increase the collision probability
working fluid could be enhanced, and the intensityening effect between particles, which could also make the micro-convection
could gradually increase with the increase of voltage until the between the nanoparticle and the fluid, so as to achieve the heat
maximum value reached. After that, even if the voltage continued transfer enhancement. According to the above analyses, the
to increase, the intensityening effect could no longer change. nanoparticles would be subjected to the electrophoresis force
Meanwhile, Liu et al. (L. Z. H, Y. J, 2004) found that electric field and the dielectrophoresis force under the high electric field. More-
heat transfer enhancement had a very excellent heat transfer over, these forces would strengthen the movement of nanoparti-
enhancement effect on the weakly polar dielectric, such as the cles and increase the collision as well as heat exchange between
insulating oil. As for the electric field between the ring electrode particles. Jung et al. (M. J. Y., J. S. P., C. S., U. S., 2005) studied the
and the plate, Yabe (Y. K., Yabe, 1997) solved the Navier-Stokes dynamic characteristics of nanoparticles (Al2O3) under the electric
equation containing the electric field force, and determined the field, which was generated by the alternating current. In the force
velocity distribution and the influence of liquid jet on the natural model, the electric field force considered the electrostatic force and
convection heat transfer. First of all, the single-phase liquid work- the dielectrophoretic force, which also included the viscous force
ing fluid under the electric field would be polarized, but the total and the Brownian force of particles. The results showed that the
polarization charge of working fluid was zero. However, the elec- average speed of nanoparticles decreased with the increase of par-
tric field force of polarized charge in the high electric field area ticle size, and increased with the increase of electric potential. In
26
a) Experiment process
b) The variation of Nu number with Re number

Fig. 28. The experimental process and results (Wang et al., 2019).
Fig. 29. The boiling heat transfer characteristics of magnetic fluid (A. H, M. M, M. R, 2014).
27
5. Comprehensive evaluation
According to the above discussions, it can be seen that different

heat transfer enhancement technologies have great differences for
the single-phase and two-phase flow conditions. Meanwhile, the
corresponding technological development maturity and manufac-
turing process are also significantly different. As for the application
of various technologies in the nuclear reactor system, there is the
severe environment with high temperature, high pressure, and
strong radiation, thus the comprehensive analyses of different
technologies are necessary with the various evaluation standards.
The detailed evaluation results can be seen in Table 1.
1) Due to the larger specific surface area of micro-channel tech-

nology, its heat transfer enhancement performance is signif-
icant for the single-phase flow. Meanwhile, since the two-
Fig. 30. The schematic diagram of liquid jet under the electric field (Chen, 2016). phase interface morphology and the bubble behaviors in
the micro-channel are different from the conventional chan-
nel, this technology also presents the significant heat trans-
addition, Liu (Liu et al., 2008) used the pure transformer oil as the
fer enhancement performance under the condition of two-
base fluid, and different proportions of Al2O3 nanoparticles were
phase flow. By now, this technology has been widely used
added. Then, the voltage effect on the heat transfer enhancement
in the field of microelectronics. Moreover, the manufactur-
was studied. It was suggested that the the maximum heat transfer
ing technology of this technology is mature and diversified.
coefficient could be increased by nearly 2.5 times. Moreover, Jia
However, the application of this technology has some
(Jia, 2012) and Huang (Huang, 2012) proposed that as the elec-
requirements for the working fluid. For example, the impu-
trophoresis direction was the same as the heat exchange direction,
rities and the corrosion products may block the micro-
the nanoparticles in the higher temperature area moved to the
channel and lead to the heat transfer deterioration. On the
lower temperature area, thereby achieving the purpose of heat
whole, it can be concluded that this technology has the
transfer enhancement.
Table 1
The comprehensive evaluation of different heat transfer enhancement technologies.
Evaluating Micro-channel Longitudinal Micro-nano Surface coating Magnetic field Electric field
indicator technology vortex technology structure technology technology technology
technology
Single-phase heat www www w w ww ww
transfer
performance
Two-phase heat www Affected by wwwAffected by www www ww Dependent on ww
transfer structural structural Magnetofluid &
performance magnetic field
Dependent on
electric field
Application in ww ww w w
reactor core
Application in www www ww ww w w
non-nuclear
environment
Manufacturing www Mature & www Mature & ww Mature but ww
maturity Diversified Diversifie limited size
Mature but w
limited size
Scientific w
research stage
Scientific
research stage
Technology Microelectronics Various fields New energy New energy Scientific research
maturity stage
【Space field】 Scientific research
stage
【Space field】
Technology Impurities block Heat transfer Corrosion product Corrosion product Dependent on dependent on fluid
bottleneck channel, resulting in performance is deposition and deposition and magnetic fluid and properties and electric
heat transfer significantly affected hydrochemical hydrochemical magnetic field control field control
deterioration by structure effect effect technology technology
Comprehensive Reactor core www www ww ww w w
evaluation
Non-nuclear www www www www ww ww
environment
www: Strong; ww: Relatively strong; w: Relatively weak; : Weak
28
broad application prospect in non-nuclear environment and

the relatively strong application prospect in reactor core
environment.
2) In addition to improving the flow channel formation and the
thermal component structure to increase the specific surface
area, the longitudinal vortex technology can also signifi-
cantly disturb the flow field, enhance the turbulence degree,
and destroy the thermal boundary layer, so the heat transfer
under single-phase and two-phase conditions can also be
significantly improved. This technology has been widely
used in various heat exchangers, such as: the fuel assembly
mixing vane and the heat exchanger fin. Therefore, this tech-
nology has broad applications in reactor core and non-
nuclear environments. As for the application prospect, the
technical difficulty lies in how to optimize the structural
design to obtain the best heat transfer enhancement
performance.
3) Both of the micro-nano structure technology and the surface a) Structural innovation technology
coating technology are dependent on the surface treatment
of heat transfer component. Based on the analyses of heat
transfer methods, the above two technologies can not obvi-
ously improve the heat transfer performance in the single-
phase condition, but can significantly improve the heat
transfer coefficient for the two-phase flow. By now, the
above technologies have been applied in the field of new
energy, and the manufacturing technology is mature, but
the manufacturing size is limited. As for the reactor core
environment, the strong radiation, the corrosion product
deposition, and the hydrochemical effect, the applicability
of above technologies is weak, but they have strong applica-
tion prospects in the non-nuclear heat exchangers, such as
the steam generator and the special safe system.
4) The magnetic field heat transfer enhancement technology
and the electric field heat transfer enhancement technology
are both active technologies, which need to rely on the phys-
ical properties of fluid and the intervention technology of
flow field (including the magnetic and electric field control
technology). According to the discussions and analyses of b) Surface modification technology
this paper, the above two technologies can effectively
improve the heat transfer performance under both single- Fig. 31. SWOT analysis results.
phase and two-phase conditions. However, this technology
is still in the scientific research stage and has no the actual
engineering application. According to the current technolog- 6. Conclusions
ical development, its application in the reactor core environ-
ment is weak, while its application in the non-nuclear This paper integrates the engineering need and the develop-
environments is worth expecting. ment vision of nuclear reactor system, to analyze the thermal-
hydraulic parameter bottleneck and propose an overall technical
On the basis of above evaluation, this paper takes the structural route to enhance the heat transfer performance. Furthermore, the
innovation technology and the surface modification technology as systematic research, demonstration and analysis are carried out
examples to conduct the SWOT analysis. The SWOT method refers in this paper.
to the internal strength (S), the internal weakness (W), the external
opportunity (O) and the external threat (T). Meanwhile, the inter- (1) The key thermal-hydraulic parameter bottleneck of reactor
nal and external cross matrices can be used to formulate the devel- core mainly include: power-flow ratio, limit quality, and
opment strategy. As for the application of heat transfer CHF. One of the most direct methods to increase the
enhancement technology in the nuclear reactor system, the inter- power-flow ratio is to increase the contact area between fuel
nal factors include the heat transfer enhancement performance, assembly and coolant. By optimizing the phase distribution
the technology development maturity, the manufacturing matu- to improve the sudden variation of pressure drop, reducing
rity. The external factors include the applied environmental char- the two-phase resistance proportion, or enhancing the cool-
acteristics, such as radiation, high temperature, high pressure, ant transverse mixing, the two-phase flow instability can be
high flow rate, and physical–chemical properties. Therefore, the significantly inhibited or eliminated. Moreover, it is believed
SWOT analysis results of structural innovation technology and sur- that CHF can be effectively increased by suppressing the
face modification technology are shown in Fig. 31a and Fig. 31b, vapor phase accumulation on the heating wall and promot-
respectively. ing the rewetting effect of heating wall.
29
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Annals of Nuclear Energy 159 (2021) 108302

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Annals of Nuclear Energy

Review of interdisciplinary heat transfer enhancement technology for

Two-phase flow instability

Microscopic instability Macroscopic instability

Kelvin-Helmholtz Dynamic instability Static instability

Coupled neutronic Geysering

Fig. 1. The classification of two-phase flow instability (Lu et al., 2019).

a) Liquid film evaporation model b) Bubble blocking model

c) Micro-liquid layer evaporation model d) Interface separation model

a) The schematic diagram of straight pipe structure

b) The schematic diagram of spiral tube structure

Spiral inner tube

c) The schematic diagram of spiral sleeve structure

b) The schematic diagram of passive containment waste heat removal system

Fig. 9. The technology route of this study.

a) Bundle fuel assembly

b) Annular fuel assembly

c) Tight-lattice fuel assembly d) Tight-lattice fuel assembly with helical wire

a) Double diagonal rib tube [41] b) Tapered rib tube [92]

c) Helical rib tube [93] d) Laterally convex tube [94]

e) Transverse concave tube [95]

a) Helically outer grooved tube [96]

b) Round, rectangular, trapezoidal grooved pipes [97]

c) Helically inner grooved tube [98]

vective heat transfer coefficient. As the thickness of twisted ele-

cavity surface with different geometric parameters. The treated

Nanorough Hemispherical Micro-channel

4. Actively heat transfer enhancement technology

a) Wettability b) Surface structure

c) Boiling heat transfer characteristics d) ONB characteristics

Smooth surface Super-hydrophilic surface Super-hydrophobic

b) Boiling heat transfer curve

a) Micro pillar b) Micro hole c) Nano-pillar d) Nano hole

b) The variation of Nu number with Re number

According to the above discussions, it can be seen that different

1) Due to the larger specific surface area of micro-channel tech-

www: Strong; ww: Relatively strong; w: Relatively weak; : Weak

broad application prospect in non-nuclear environment and

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