Flow and heat transfer of supercritical LNG in spiral microchannel

Abstract

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is stable and safe, which is why the natural gas is usually liquefied before transported. The heat exchanger is widely used as the key component of vaporizing LNG, and it is composed of a large number of microchannels. This paper mainly analyzes the flow of supercritical LNG in a spiral microchannel, and compares the flow and heat transfer characteristic of spiral microchannel with different pitch. The result was indicative that with the lessen of pitch, the heat transfer is improved, but the flow characteristic is decreased. Compared with the straight channel, the spiral channel with appropriate pitch value can markedly improve the heat transfer properties, but has less effect on the flow characteristic. The discussion also includes the flow and heat transfer of microchannel with different mass flux and heat flux.

Keywords

• heat exchanger
• spiral channel
• supercritical lng