Open Access

Camila Pedano-Medina, Paolo Petagna, Susanne Mall-Gleißle

• As the demand for environmentally friendly refrigeration technologies continues to grow, the use of natural refrigerants for the thermal management of detectors for high-energy physics becomes increasingly relevant. While the use of boiling CO2 flows is well established at CERN for applications requiring cold conditions, this study focuses on investigating the heat transfer capabilities of carbonAs the demand for environmentally friendly refrigeration technologies continues to grow, the use of natural refrigerants for the thermal management of detectors for high-energy physics becomes increasingly relevant. While the use of boiling CO2 flows is well established at CERN for applications requiring cold conditions, this study focuses on investigating the heat transfer capabilities of carbon dioxide in supercritical conditions. In this regard, high thermal capacities and low values of density and viscosity are some of the main characteristics of fluids above their critical point. Furthermore, thanks to their inherent single-phase-like nature, supercritical fluids could allow for relatively simple fluid management in multibranched circuits. These features, combined with its critical temperature of 31°C, make supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) an exceptionally well-suited candidate for thermal management applications where the electronics can be operated at temperatures above 32°C. However, several points on this subject remain open in the available literature, highlighting the need for additional accurate experimental observations. This work centers around the development and use of a dedicated test rig designed to explore the thermodynamic performance and efficiency of sCO2-based systems.…