Experimental Study on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer in an Extremely Small Tube

Author(s):  
Haruhiko Ohta ◽  
Koichi Inoue ◽  
Yuichiro Shimada

Flow boiling heat transfer in a single small tube is investigated by using FC72 as a working fluid. The heat transfer coefficients are measured in the ranges of heat flux 2–24kW/m2 and mass velocity 100–400kg/m2s under the condition of near atmospheric pressure. Test tube, made of stainless steel, has an inner diameter of 0.51mm and a heated length of 200mm. The tube is located horizontally in a vacuum chamber to reduce the heat loss and to minimize the time to obtain data regarded as that of steady state. In the single-phase region, heat transfer coefficients due to forced convection are in good agreement with the values from the conventional theories. In the saturated region, measured heat transfer characteristics are quite different depending on whether the test liquid is deaerated or not deaerated before the experiments. By using deaerated liquid, three different heat transfer regimes are observed: In the first regime, the heat transfer is dominated by nucleate boiling in low vapor quality, and the heat transfer is deteriorated or enhanced depending on the channel confinement and heat flux. In the second regime, the heat transfer is dominated by two-phase forced convection in moderate quality as is well known for the tubes of normal size. In the third regime, the heat transfer is dominated again by two-phase forced convection, but is deteriorated in high quality. One or two regimes can disappear or become unclear depending on the conditions of flow and heating. The effects of vapor quality and mass velocity on the heat transfer characteristics due to two-phase forced convection in the moderate vapor quality are clarified in the experimental ranges tested. And a reason for the gradual heat transfer deterioration observed in high quality is discussed based on the liquid-vapor behaviors inherent in small diameter tubes.

Author(s):  
Kwang-Hyun Bang ◽  
Kun-Eui Hong ◽  
In-Seon Hwang

This paper reports an experimental study on flow boiling of water in a minichannel. Flow boiling heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops were measured and the data were compared with existing correlations. The effect of pressure was the major objectives in this study and the range of pressure was 1 to 18 bars. The experimental apparatus consisted mainly of a minichannel test section, gear pump, pre-heater, pressurizer, condenser and evaporator. The evaporator was used for variation of vapor quality at the inlet of test section. The pressurizer controls the desired system pressure. The test section is a round tube of 1.73 mm inside diameter, made of 316 stainless steel. The test section and the evaporator tubes were heated by DC electric current through the tubes. The measured flow boiling heat transfer coefficients showed two distinct regions; relatively high heat transfer coefficients at low vapor quality and lower heat transfer coefficients at higher vapor quality. This observation implies the change of flow regime, slug to annular flow. Comparisons of the experimental data and the prediction of correlations (Gungor & Winterton, 1987; Tran et al., 1996; Kandlikar, 2003) showed large discrepancy in both regions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 348 ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
I. Pranoto ◽  
C. Yang ◽  
L.X. Zheng ◽  
K.C. Leong ◽  
P.K. Chan

This paper presents an experimental study of flow boiling heat transfer from carbon nanotube (CNT) structures in a two-phase cooling facility. Multi-walled CNT (MWCNT) structures of dimensions 80 mm × 60 mm were applied to a horizontal flow boiling channel. Two CNT structures with different properties viz. NC-3100 and MERCSD were tested with a dielectric liquid FC-72. The height of the CNT structures was fixed at 37.5 μm and tests were conducted at coolant mass fluxes of 35, 50, and 65 kg/m2·s under saturated flow boiling conditions. The experimental results show that the CNT structures enhance the boiling heat transfer coefficients by up to 1.6 times compared to the smooth aluminum surface. The results also show that the CNT structures increase significantly the Critical Heat Flux (CHF) of the smooth aluminum surface from 66.7 W/cm2 to 100 W/cm2.


Author(s):  
Hao Wang ◽  
Xiande Fang

As an excellent cryogenic cooling medium, Nitrogen (N2) has been used in a variety of engineering fields, where the determination of N2 two-phase flow boiling heat transfer is required. There were some studies evaluating the correlations of flow boiling heat transfer coefficient for N2. However, either the number of correlations covered or the number of data used was limited. This work presents a comparative review of existing correlations of flow boiling heat transfer coefficients for N2 applications. A database of N2 flow boiling heat transfer containing 1043 experimental data points is compiled to evaluate 45 correlations of two-phase flow boiling heat transfer. The experimental parameters cover the ranges of mass flux from 28.0 to 1684.8 kg/m2s, heat flux from 0.2 to 135.6 kW/m2, vapor quality from 0.002 to 0.994, saturation pressure from 0.1 to 3.16 MPa, and channel inner diameter from 0.351 to 14 mm. The results show that the best correlation has a mean absolute deviation of 31.8% against the whole database, suggesting that more efforts should be made to study N2 flow boiling heat transfer to develop a more accurate correlation.


Author(s):  
Sehwan In ◽  
Sangkwon Jeong

This paper describes the flow boiling heat transfer of R123/R134a mixture in a single round micro-channel with 0.19 mm ID. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficients were measured with the variation of mixture composition (R123 mole fraction: 0.502, 0.746) at various experimental conditions: mass velocities (314, 392, 470 kg/m2-s), heat fluxes (10, 15, 20 kW/m2) and vapor qualities (0.2–0.85). The heat transfer characteristics of R123/R134a mixture are similar to those of pure R123 observed in the previous flow boiling experiment. The similarity of heat transfer characteristics denotes that the heat transfer is governed by evaporation of thin liquid film around the elongated bubbles like the case of pure R123. The heat transfer coefficients of R123/R134a mixture are compared with those of equivalent pure refrigerant by the correlation developed from pure R123 experimental results. The large reduction of heat transfer coefficients compared with pure refrigerant is found in micro-channels flow boiling by the mass transfer effect of mixed refrigerant. In addition, macro-channel correlations for mixed refrigerant do not make accurate prediction about the reduction of heat transfer coefficients.


Author(s):  
V. V. Kuznetsov ◽  
S. V. Dimov ◽  
P. A. Houghton ◽  
A. S. Shamirzaev ◽  
S. Sunder

When boiling or condensation occurs inside very small and non-circular channels, capillary forces influence two-phase flow patterns, which in turn determine heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop. A better understanding of the underlying phenomena would be beneficial from the perspective of optimizing the design of compact evaporators and condensers. The thrust of this study was to understand the nature of up-flow boiling and condensation heat transfer in channels with a small gap. It consisted of two parts. The first part included observation of two-phase flow patterns with refrigerant R21 in a test section containing plain fins. The shape of the channels formed between fins was close to rectangular. The test section was placed in a closed refrigerant loop, and it was fabricated with a transparent wall to allow observation of the flow. An electrically heated coil was used to introduce liquid and vapor at the needed quality into the test section. Regimes of slug, froth, annular and cell flow patterns were recognized and the areas of flow pattern were determined. The second part included up-flow boiling and condensation heat transfer measurement with refrigerant R21 in a set of vertical mini-channels consisting of plain fins. An aluminum fin pad was bonded to two dividing aluminum sheets by dip brazing. Heat was supplied to the test section from a thermoelectric module, which utilized the Peltier effect. A thick copper plate was placed between the dividing sheet on each side of the fin passage and the respective Peltier module to establish a uniform wall temperature. Heat transfer coefficient measurements were done under forced flow conditions. Data are obtained for mass flow rates of 30 and 50 kg/m2s under both boiling and condensation modes with wall superheats ranging from 1 to 5K. The dependence of heat transfer coefficient from wall superheat was not observed both for boiling and condensing modes. It shows the primary role of evaporation from thin films in a confined space when the mass flux is small. At low vapor quality the boiling heat transfer coefficients are considerably higher than that for condensation. A high heat flux in ultra thin liquid film area near the channel corner or in the vicinity of liquid-vapor-solid contact line (after the film rupture) supports the high total heat transfer coefficient in evaporation mode. In contrast with evaporation mode, at upflow condensation mode the heat transfer coefficient is strongly dependent on vapor quality. At plug flow regime the vapor velocity determines the condensing heat transfer.


2016 ◽  
Vol 819 ◽  
pp. 181-185
Author(s):  
Agus Sunjarianto Pamitran ◽  
Ulfi Khabibah ◽  
Normah Mohd-Ghazali ◽  
Robiah Ahmad ◽  
Kiyoshi Saito

Hydrocarbon refrigerants have been widely used to replace HFCs. As hydrocarbon, R-290 has no ODP (Ozone Depletion Potential) and negligible GWP (Global Warming Potential). This paper presents flow boiling heat transfer in small tube with R-290 and R-22. The test tube has inner diameter of 7.6 mm and length of 1.07 m. In order to determine the heat transfer coefficient, experiments were carried out for heat fluxes ranging from 10 to 25 kW/m2, mass fluxes ranging from 204 to 628 kg/m2s, and saturation temperatures ranging from 1.87 to 11.9o C. The study analyzed the heat transfer through the local heat transfer coefficient along the flow under the variation of these different parameters. In comparison with R-22, R-290 provides higher heat transfer coefficients. In the prediction of the heat transfer coefficients of R-22 and R-290, the correlation of Shah (1982) and Choi et.al. (2009) best fitted the present experimental result, respectively.


Author(s):  
Wenhai Li ◽  
Ken Alabi ◽  
Foluso Ladeinde

Over the years, empirical correlations have been developed for predicting saturated flow boiling [1–15] and condensation [16–30] heat transfer coefficients inside horizontal/vertical tubes or micro-channels. In the present work, we have examined 30 of these models, and modified many of them for use in compact plate-fin heat exchangers. However, the various correlations, which have been developed for pipes and ducts, have been modified in our work to make them applicable to extended fin surfaces. The various correlations have been used in a low-order, one-dimensional, finite-volume type numerical integration of the flow and heat transfer equations in heat exchangers. The NIST’s REFPROP database [31] is used to account for the large variations in the fluid thermo-physical properties during phase change. The numerical results are compared with Yara’s experimental data [32]. The validity of the various boiling and condensation models for a real plate-fin heat exchanger design is discussed. The results show that some of the modified boiling and condensation correlations can provide acceptable prediction of heat transfer coefficient for two-phase flows in compact plate-fin heat exchangers.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document