Heat transfer behaviors of some supercritical fluids: A review

Supercritical fluids (e.g., hydrocarbon fuels, water, carbon dioxide, and organic working medium, etc) have been recognized as working media to improve thermal efficiencies in power cycles and energy conversion, and have been used or selected as the working fluids in engineering fields such as aerospace, nuclear power, solar energy, refrigeration, geothermal energy, chemical technology, and so on. To better understand the interesting characteristic or abnormal behaviors of supercritical fluids, most valuable research works (including experimental results and numerical studies) from domestic and abroad have been documented. As such, this paper presents a comprehensive review on heat transfer behaviors of some supercritical fluids in engineering applications. This review focuses on recently available articles published mainly from 2016 up to the present time. The common problems (i.e., heat transfer enhancement and heat transfer deterioration particularly for the supercritical hydrocarbon fuels) in the supercritical field are summarized and some perspectives on future prospects are also included.