High-temperature flow testing and heat

transfer for a moving packed-bed particle/

sCO2 heat exchanger
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 2033, 040003 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5067039
Published Online: 08 November 2018

Kevin J. Albrecht and Clifford K. Ho

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AIP Conference Proceedings 2033, 040003 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5067039 2033, 040003

© 2018 Author(s).
 High-Temperature Flow Testing and Heat Transfer for a
Moving Packed-Bed Particle/sCO2 Heat Exchanger
Kevin J. Albrecht1, a) and Clifford K. Ho1, b)
1
Concentrating Solar Technologies Department, Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. 5800, Albuquerque, NM
87185-1127, USA
a)
kalbrec@sandia.gov
b)
Corresponding author: ckho@sandia.gov

Abstract. Experiments for measuring the heat transfer coefficients and visualization of dense granular flows in rectangular
vertical channels are reported. The experiments are directed at the development of a moving packed-bed heat exchanger to
transfer thermal energy from solar-heated particles to drive a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle. Particle-
wall heat transfer coefficients are found to agree with Nusselt number correlations for plug flow in a parallel plate
configuration. The plate spacing and particle properties in the prototype design result in experimentally measured particle-
wall heat transfer coefficients of 200 W/m2-K at intermediate temperature and are expected to be higher at elevated
temperature due to improved packed bed thermal conductivity. The high-temperature (600oC) visualization experiments
indicate that uniform particle flow distribution through the vertical channels of a shell-and-plate heat exchanger can be
achieved through a mass flow cone particle feeder. Uniform drawdown was experienced for both 77o and 72o feeder angles
over a range of particle mass flow rates between 0.05 and 0.175 kg/s controlled by a slide gate to modulate the outlet flow
cross-sectional area.

INTRODUCTION
The ability of solid particle receivers to achieve high temperature for integration with high efficiency power cycles
have made them a highly researched area over the past decade.1,2 Currently, solid particle receivers of multiple
configurations are being demonstrated on-sun at the megawatt scale.3-5 However, the realization of particle-based
concentrating solar power (CSP) plants to drive supercritical CO 2 (sCO2) power cycles requires the development of a
particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger. The development of this component to effectively transfer heat from the high-
temperature particles to the sCO2 is critical for CSP’s ability to achieve DOE SunShot performance targets.6 Without
effective particle-to-sCO2 heat transfer, prohibitive costs of large heat exchanger surface area or increased receiver
temperature could impede CSP ability to become commercially viable.
Particle heat exchangers are typically divided into two configurations of fluidized beds and moving packed beds.
Typically, the fluidized bed configuration is observed to have a higher heat transfer coefficient than a moving packed
bed. However, the increased heat transfer coefficient comes at the expense of additional components including a
fluidization gas compressor and recuperative heat exchanger, which also increases the complexity of operation.
Moving packed-bed designs have been investigated by Sandia7 and DLR8 as a potentially simpler and cost-effective
option for CSP technologies.
Although handling as well as heating and cooling bulk solids is a common practice in industry, a particle heat
exchanger for the particular application of a solarized sCO2 power cycle has never been designed. Therefore,
experiments are needed to test particle flow at elevated temperature in adjacent vertical channels, which will allow for
the verification of a feeder design that is capable of providing equivalent mass flow in the individual channels.
Additionally, the heat transfer coefficient of a moving packed-bed of particles in a rectangular vertical channel must
be characterized to ensure proper sizing of the heat transfer surface area for a given thermal duty. This paper details

SolarPACES 2017
AIP Conf. Proc. 2033, 040003-1–040003-9; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5067039
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1757-1/$30.00

040003-1
the development of two individual experiments to determine particle flow characteristics at high temperatures (600oC)
and measure heat transfer coefficients in a parallel plate moving packed-bed heat exchanger configuration.

SHELL-AND-PLATE MOVING PACKED-BED PARTICLE-TO-SCO2 HEAT

EXCHANGER
An illustration of the shell-and-plate moving packed-bed particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger is displayed in Figure 1.
The heat exchanger contains particles at or near their packing limit that move though the vertical channels under the
force of gravity. The slow moving dense granular flow results in good particle-wall contact over the entire heat transfer
surface area. However, since the particles are densely packed in the channels, mixing in the cross-channel direction is
not possible and heat transfer is limited by the bulk effective thermal conductivity of the packed bed of particles.
Therefore, maintaining small characteristic heat transfer length scales (i.e., plate spacing) is important for enhancing
the particle-wall heat transfer coefficient. Further enhancement of the heat transfer coefficient is possible through
horizontally staggering plates9 to take advantage of the thermal entry region multiple times in a single heat exchanger.
Figure 1 depicts a three-bank configuration in which the local particle/sCO2 flow configuration in any one bank is
cross flow, but the global flow configurations of the banks is counter flow.

FIGURE 1. Illustration of the shell-and-plate moving packed-bed particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger

The thermal energy from the particles is transferred to sCO2 contained in small channels within the plates. Particles
enter the heat exchanger at the target receiver outlet temperature of 775oC T  and are cooled to 570 C T 
s,in
o
s,out

by transferring thermal energy to counter flowing sCO2 entering at 550oC TCO2 ,in   and exiting at 700 C T
o
CO 2 ,out 
10
. Therefore, a 100 kWth prototype will have to accommodate particle flow rates of approximately 0.41 kg/s and sCO2
flow rates of 0.53 kg/s. The temperature specifications of both inlet and outlet particle and sCO2 streams allows for a
direct calculation of the log mean temperature difference  'Tlm  and heat exchanger effectiveness H HX  ,

'Tlm
Ts,out  TCO ,in   Ts,in  TCO ,out 
2 2
(1)
§ Ts,out  TCO ,in ·
ln ¨ 2
¸
¨ Ts,in  TCO ,out ¸
© 2 ¹

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 Q
H HX , (2)
ms cp,s 
s in  TCO2 ,in
p s Ts,in 
which are found to be 41.6oC and 91.1%, respectively. The relationship between heat transfer surface area  A and
overall heat transfer coefficient U  can be specified as
Q UA ˜ 'Tlm . (3)
Modeling approaches for predicting the overall heat transfer coefficient based on the internal geometry have been
documented elsewhere.7 The overall heat transfer coefficient for a particle-to-sCO2 heat exchanger U  can be divided
into three series resistances including the particle-wall convection  hsw  , conduction through the heat transfer plate
 kHX  , and sCO2-wall convection  hCO w  .
2

1
§ 1 t 1 ·
U ¨  HX  ¸ (4)
¨ hsw kHX hCO w ¸
© 2 ¹
The particle- and sCO2-wall convection coefficients can be estimated from fully developed Nusselt number
correlations for plug flows7,11 and turbulent flows12, respectively. While the plate conduction resistance can be
estimated from the physical properties of 316 stainless steel.12 The overall heat transfer coefficient is calculated to be
153 W/m2-K. Over 85% of the total heat transfer resistance is attributed to the particle-wall convection coefficient.
Therefore, it is imperative to have an accurate measurement of the particle-wall convection coefficient to ensure the
estimated heat transfer performance of the moving packed-bed heat exchanger can be attained.
The heat transfer analysis presented above assumes all of the vertical channels and plates within the heat exchanger
behave identically. This requires that the mass flow of particles and sCO2 are evenly distributed and preferential flow
is not observed in any one particular channel. For a moving packed bed of particles, the flow characteristics within
the channels of the heat transfer plates are controlled by the particle feeder at the base of the heat exchanger (Figure
1). The particle feeder controls the total mass flow rate of particles and promotes a uniformly distributed flow of
particles through the heat exchanger. Since particle friction coefficients have been observed to be dependent on
temperature, the feeder performance must be verified at the operating temperature.

HIGH-TEMPERATURE PARTICLE FLOW TESTING

Particle flow testing at elevated temperature (600oC) allows for the verification of a particle feeder design that
achieves equivalent mass flow rates of particles between the adjacent vertical channels (Figure 2) at conditions
representative of actual operation. Equivalent mass flow through the channels is necessary for maximizing the overall
heat transfer coefficient U  of the heat exchanger and minimizing thermal stresses that can develop due to
temperature non-uniformities. An apparatus to test the mass flow cone feeder is depicted in Figure 2, which consists
of a mock heat exchanger, mass flow cone and slide gate assembly.
The mock heat exchanger is constructed from 6 mm 316 stainless steel plates with 6 mm spacing, which is
consistent with the 100 kWth prototype design; however, sCO2 will not pass through the plates. The front face of the
mock heat exchanger is a quartz window, which allows for visualization of the particle flow in the adjacent channels
at temperature. The quartz window is sealed to the vertical plates by using FiberFrax felt insulation as a gasket material
and a counter weight system has been devised to provide a normal force for pushing the quartz window against the
stainless steel plates. The mass flow cone particle feeder sits below the mock heat exchanger, which provides a smooth
transition from the shell-and-plate heat exchanger cross section to the slide gate. The slide gate restricts the mass flow
cone outlet using a tear drop cross section to provide a slow change in area as the slide gate is translated.
The entire assembly has been sized to fit inside of the NSTTF furnace (0.9 m x 0.9 m x 1.2 m), which is capable
of reaching temperatures in excess of 900oC. The experiments are conducted by filling the apparatus with particles
while the slide gate is in the closed position. The entire experiment is brought up to temperature in the furnace over
the course of 8 hours. The temperature of the furnace is controlled to 600 oC and a thermocouple is inserted into the
center of the mass flow cone to ensure the heat has penetrated through the packed bed of particles. Once at temperature,
the slide gate is opened to a specified flow. The high-temperature particle flows can be visualized through the quartz
window at the front face of the heat exchanger with the furnace doors opened slightly.

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 FIGURE 2. Illustration of the particle feeder test apparatus (left) and descriptions of mass and funnel flow within the
adjacent vertical channels (right)

Through video processing a measurement of velocity in the individual channels is possible. Additionally, a
measurement of total mass flow rate is made through timing the experiment duration and measuring the mass of
particles accumulated in the catch hopper after cooling. The calculated particle mass flow rates as a function of slide
gate position and operating conditions (particle type, temperature, feeder angle) are reported in Figure 3. The high-
temperature tests display a flow rate that is consistently 25% lower than the ambient temperature tests. However, if
the operating conditions are held constant, the slide gate can accurately control mass flow rate with a sensitivity of
0.354 g/s-mm at the design point, which are well within the capabilities of linear positioning systems. Two particle
types, ID50 (~280 μm) and HSP40/70 (~210-420 μm), manufactured by Carbo Ceramics were investigated which
slightly differ in nominal particle diameter and composition.

FIGURE 3. Feeder particle mass flow rates as a function of slide gate position for ambient and high temperature (600oC) cases
of ID50 and HSP40/70

Images of a single flow test are displayed in Figure 4 for the 77o feeder angle with ID50 material at a mass flow
rate that corresponds to the design point of the 100 kW th prototype. Measuring the particle heights in the individual

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channels at specified times allows for calculating the superficial particle velocity in each channel. The average channel
velocity is calculated to be 5.08 mm/s with a standard deviation of 0.41 mm/s. From the figure, the center channels
are observed to have slightly higher flow rates than the outer channels. It is important to note that at ambient
temperature, no evidence of preferential flow in the center channels is observed. This confirms prior findings that
particle-wall friction increases with increasing temperature.

FIGURE 4. Image of the particle feeder test apparatus in the furnace (left) and snapshots of the flow visualization experiment
taken at 8 second intervals with the channel heights highlighted in red for ID50 at 600oC with a slide gate position of 57.15 mm

MOVING PACKED-BED PARTICLE-WALL HEAT TRANSFER

Experiments for measuring heat transfer coefficients for dense granular flows have been extensively documented
in the literature.13-19 However, the majority of these studies are not applicable to the moving packed-bed heat exchanger
design because the flows are either external (heated on one side), do not quantify heat transfer coefficients based on
local mean particle temperature, or only measure heat transfer coefficients in the fully developed region. For the
application of a moving packed bed heat exchanger, the internal dense granular flow heat transfer coefficient must be
measured based on local particle-wall temperature difference and characterize the heat transfer coefficient from the
thermal entry to fully developed flow.7 Knowledge of the particle-wall heat transfer coefficients, which has been
measured under the conditions experienced in the full scale heat exchanger, will ensure proper sizing of the heat
transfer surface area for a given thermal duty.
The experimental apparatus for creating a uniform heat flux boundary condition on an internal dense granular flow
is depicted in Figure 5. The particle supply is initially contained in the upper hopper and moves under the force of
gravity through the heated region. The mass flow rate of particles is controlled by a slide gate, which is translated with
a stepper motor and linear stage. Particles exiting the slide gate are caught in the lower hopper, which sits on top of a
scale (RSP1-20 kg DI-1000U) to measure the real time mass flow rate. A PID controller has been implemented in
LabVIEW software to adjust the slide gate position based on the time derivative of the load cell particle mass
measurement. Cartridge heaters wired in parallel are inserted into the walls on either side of the vertical channel to
create a uniform heat flux boundary condition. The heater power can be adjusted by a zero voltage crossing SCR
power controller (Avatar A1Z), which controlled through LabVIEW software. Eight type K thermocouple probes are
used to measure particle and wall temperatures necessary for calculating the heat transfer coefficient. The locations of
the probes are illustrated in Figure 5. Particle inlet and outlet temperatures are measured in the upper hopper and slide

040003-5
gate, respectively. Particle and wall temperatures are measured at three locations distributed over the height of the
heat transfer region. Particle temperature is measured through translating thermocouples across the flow to extract a
temperature profile20, which allows for the evaluation of the local heat transfer coefficient as a function of position
along the height of the channel.

FIGURE 5. Illustration of the moving packed-bed particle heat transfer experiment

Photos of the experimental setup with details of the thermocouple translation, slide gate actuator and particle heat
transfer region are displayed in Figure 6. The experiment is conducted by first filling the upper hopper with room
temperature particles while the slide gate is in the closed position. Next the heater power controller is placed in
temperature control mode to preheat the experiment to a temperature near the steady-state operating condition. Once
the heater power has settled to a constant value, the heater power controller is switched to a constant power mode and
the slide gate is opened to a specified value, which corresponds to the desired mass flow rate. The experiment takes
approximately one hour of continuous operation to achieve steady-state operation. Once steady-state operation has
been achieved, the thermocouples for measuring particle temperature are translated across the channel width.
In order to bound the error in the heat transfer experiment the heat transfer coefficient was calculated by two
different approaches. The first approach assumes the heat flux is uniformly distributed over the walls which leads to
a linear temperature distribution. The second approach uses the measured local temperature of the particles to
determine the temperature and heat flux distribution. The two methods for calculating the local particle-wall heat
transfer coefficient are reported in Figure 7. The error bars denote the difference in the two methods for calculating
the heat transfer coefficient and the data point represents the average of the two methods. An enhanced heat transfer
coefficient is observed in the entry region where the flow is thermally developing followed by an asymptote to the
fully developed heat transfer coefficient. Measured values indicate heat transfer coefficients of approximately 200
W/m2-K are attainable for thermally developed particle flow in 4 mm vertical channels.
Qheater
hsw (5)

2wch hch Tw  Textrap 
dTs
ms cpp,s
hsw dx (6)
2wch Tw  Tmeas 

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 FIGURE 6. Photos of the constructed heat transfer experiment with details of (a) thermocouple translation, (b) slide gate
assembly, (c) heat transfer region, and (d) plate with cartridge heaters and thermocouple protruding into the flow

FIGURE 7. Measured temperature profile and heat transfer coefficients as function of position

Heat transfer coefficients measured at slightly above ambient temperature displayed agreement with the moving
packed bed heat transfer calculations made from plug flow Nusselt number correlations. However, further
enhancement in heat transfer coefficients for dense granular flows are expected at high temperature due to increased
effective thermal conductivity of packed beds.20-22

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 CONCLUSIONS

Two lab-scale experiments were reported for the development of a moving packed-bed shell-and-plate particle-to-
sCO2 heat exchanger. High temperature flow testing verified the ability of a mass flow cone particle feeder to create
a uniform particle flow distribution between individual adjacent vertical channels while at temperature. A difference
in the behavior of the particle feeder was observed between ambient and high-temperature tests. Operating at elevated
temperature displayed flow characteristics which were indicative of increased particle wall friction coefficients
compared to ambient temperature. Measurements of heat transfer coefficients were also reported for dense granular
flows in rectangular vertical channels. The thermally developing region displayed enhanced heat transfer coefficients
followed by a fully developed region where heat transfer coefficients asymptote to values of approximately 200W/m 2-
K. Future work will look to integrate a 100 kWth moving packed-bed heat exchanger prototype with the falling particle
receiver and sCO2 test loop at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The paper is based upon work supported in part by the DOE SunShot Program (SuNLaMP-0000000-1507). The
authors would also like to acknowledge Ashley Byman and Robert McGillivray of Solex Thermal Science for helpful
discussions on granular flow heat transfer. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and
operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell
International Inc. for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-
NA0003525.

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