Measurements at three flowrates under three different heating conditions were made.
The baseline condition is with insulating vacuum in the cryostat and will be the lowest
heating condition. The second series was run by applying current to the heater wire on the
tube. This is the closest simulation of the thermal response of a HTS cable as the heat is
applied to the tube. A third series was run at the same flowrates with the insulating space in
the outer cryostat let up to near atmospheric pressure. This condition applies heat to
directly to the annular flow only. A summary of the measured liquid nitrogen flow inlet,
and outlet conditions is provided in TABLE 2. In TABLE 3 a summary is provided of the
mass flow rate, nitrogen velocities in the former and annulus, total heat load, Q, and the
applied heat load, QLOAD. The total heat load Q consists of the background heat loads from
the cryostat, bayonets, flanges, electrical leads, and the heat load applied with the electrical
heater. The applied heat load was determined as the difference between the heater on or
vacuum condition and the baseline heat load for a particular flow.
The Reynolds number, Re, for the tube and annular flow are provided in TABLE 4.
The Re for annular flow is above the laminar flow limit where turbulent flow begins for
Re>2000. The heat transfer coefficient is generally taken to be proportional to Re0.8 in
standard correlations [9]. As a result, the tube flow heat transfer coefficient is an order of
magnitude higher than the returning annular flow. In addition, the temperatures measured
along the tube wall can be expected to be closer to the former flow temperatures than the
annulus flow temperatures.
TABLE 2. Measured test conditions.