Boiling Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of a Refrigerant R32 Flowing in a Small Horizontal Tube

In this study, experiments were performed to examine characteristics of flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of a low global warming potential refrigerant R32 flowing in a horizontal copper circular tube with 1.0 mm inside diameter for the development of a high-performance heat exchanger using small-diameter tubes or minichannels for air conditioning systems. Axially local heat transfer coefficients were measured in the range of mass fluxes from 30 to 400 kg/(m²·s), qualities from 0.05 to 1.0, and heat fluxes from 2 to 24 kW/m² at the saturation temperature of 10°C. Pressure drops were also measured in the rage of mass fluxes from 30 to 400 kg/(m²·s) and qualities from 0.05 to 0.9 at the saturation temperature of 10°C under adiabatic condition. In addition, two-phase flow patterns were observed through a sight glass fixed at the tube exit with a digital camera. The characteristics of boiling heat transfer and pressure drop were clarified based on the measurements and the comparison with data of R410A obtained previously. Also, measured heat transfer coefficients were compared with two existing correlations.     

Interactions Between Parallel Unevenly Heated Minichannels During Flow Boiling of R134A

Transient pressure drop of individual channels during flow boiling of R134a in four 0.54 mm square parallel minichannels was experimentally studied in this work. The design of the test section enabled the experimenter to control and to vary heat flux independently in each channel in the range from 3.82 to 18.66 kW/m² at five different overall flow rates from 86 to 430 kg/m²-s. Flow rate fluctuation in parallel channels due to the formation of bubbles under the nonuniform heat flux conditions caused significant oscillations in local pressure drop. Statistical analysis indicated that the pressure drop signal was normally distributed when boiling was stable with no incoming flow disturbance. Pressure drop distribution was highly skewed and multimodal when significant evaporation rate at low mass fluxes led to rapid annular flow formation, reducing the free flow of incoming fluid. Cross-correlation analysis revealed a strong interaction between minichannels having the highest heat flux difference among the set of channels. The least heated channel was more sensitive to the fluctuations in other channels. Cross-correlation between the most heated channel and the adiabatic one was estimated to be 39% when the total flow rate was the lowest, 86 kg/m²-s. The power of the relationship between channels dropped significantly as the flow rate increased. Less than 5% of data points could be considered cross-correlated at the highest flow rate of 430 kg/m²-s. Increasing the two-phase pressure drop across each channel caused higher resistance to the incoming disturbances and led to less interchannel interaction. This study of the channels interaction in a system of parallel, nonuniformly heated minichannels can be used as a tool to identify and quantify instabilities and reversed flow conditions.     

Two-Phase Flow Visualization in Chevron and Bumpy Style Flat Plate Heat Exchangers

Adiabatic flow visualization in a chevron plate, a 1:1 aspect ratio bumpy plate, and a 2:1 aspect ratio bumpy plate heat exchangers were investigated for vertical upward flow with R134a. Qualities ranging from 5% to 90% and mass fluxes of 60, 90, and 125 kg/m²-s were investigated. The flow visualization experiments were conducted at a 10°C inlet temperature. Four flow regimes were observed for the flat plate geometries investigated: bubbly flow, rough annular flow, smooth annular flow, and mist flow. The four flow regimes are mapped out on a mass flux versus quality basis for each geometry. The chevron geometry was seen to undergo flow transitions at lower qualities and mass fluxes than the bumpy plate geometries, and the 2:1 aspect ratio bumpy plate geometry was seen to undergo flow transitions at lower qualities and mass fluxes than the 1:1 aspect ratio bumpy plate geometry.     

An Experimental Study of Condensation Heat Transfer in Sub-Millimeter Rectangular Tubes

The characteristics of local heat transfer and pressure drops were experimentally investigated using condensing R134a two-phase flow, in single rectangular tubes, with hydraulic diameter of 0.494, 0.658, and 0.972 mm. New experimental techniques were used to measure the in-tube condensation heat transfer coefficient especially for the low heat and mass flows. Tests were performed for a mass flux of 100, 200, 400, and 600 kg/m2s, a heat flux of 5 to 20 kW/m2, and a saturation temperature of 40℃. In this study, effect of heat flux, mass flux, vapor qualities, and hydraulic diameter on flow condensation were investigated and the experimental local condensation heat transfer coefficients and frictional pressure drop are shown. The experimental data of condensation Nusselt number are compared with previous correlations, most of which are proposed for the condensation of pure refrigerant in a relatively large inner diameter round tubes.     

Convective boiling heat transfer and two-phase flow characteristics inside a small horizontal helically coiled tubing once-through steam generator

The pressure drop and boiling heat transfer characteristics of steam-water two-phase flow were studied in a small horizontal helically coiled tubing once-through steam generator. The generator was constructed of a 9-mm ID 1Cr18Ni9Ti stainless steel tube with 292-mm coil diameter and 30-mm pitch. Experiments were performed in a range of steam qualities up to 0.95, system pressure 0.5-3.5 MPa, mass flux 236-943 kg/m²s and heat flux 0-900 kW/m². A new two-phase frictional pressure drop correlation was obtained from the experimental data using Chisholm’s B-coefficient method. The boiling heat transfer was found to be dependent on both of mass flux and heat flux. This implies that both the nucleation mechanism and the convection mechanism have the same importance to forced convective boiling heat transfer in a small horizontal helically coiled tube over the full range of steam qualities (pre-critical heat flux qualities of 0.1-0.9), which is different from the situations in larger helically coiled tube where the convection mechanism dominates at qualities typically >0.1. Traditional single parameter Lockhart-Martinelli type correlations failed to satisfactorily correlate present experimental data, and in this paper a new flow boiling heat transfer correlation was proposed to better correlate the experimental data.     

Two-Phase Frictional Pressure Drop and Flow Boiling Heat Transfer for R245fa in a 2.32-mm Tube

Experimental two-phase frictional pressure drop and flow boiling heat transfer results are presented for a horizontal 2.32-mm ID stainless-steel tube using R245fa as working fluid. The frictional pressure drop data was obtained under adiabatic and diabatic conditions. Experiments were performed for mass velocities ranging from 100 to 700 kg m^?2 s^?1, heat flux from 0 to 55 kW m^?2, exit saturation temperatures of 31 and 41°C, and vapor qualities from 0.10 to 0.99. Pressures drop gradients and heat transfer coefficients ranging from 1 to 70 kPa m^?1 and from 1 to 7 kW m^?2 K^?1 were measured. It was found that the heat transfer coefficient is a strong function of the heat flux, mass velocity, and vapor quality. Five frictional pressure drop predictive methods were compared against the experimental database. The Cioncolini et al. (2009) method was found to work the best. Six flow boiling heat transfer predictive methods were also compared against the present database. Liu and Winterton (1991), Zhang et al. (2004), and Saitoh et al. (2007) were ranked as the best methods. They predicted the experimental flow boiling heat transfer data with an average error around 19%.     

High-Pressure Condensing Refrigerant Flows through Microchannels,Part I: Pressure Drop Models

ABSTRACT

Condensation of high-pressure refrigerants in small-diameter channels over a wide range of reduced pressures approaching the critical point is investigated in this two-part study. In this paper, Part I of the study, a multi-regime pressure drop model for condensing fluids in small-diameter channels is presented. Pressure drop measurements were conducted on condensing R404A in circular channels (inner diameter = 0.508, 1.00, 3.05 mm) over the entire quality range. Saturation temperatures were varied from 30 to 60°C, and mass fluxes from 200 to 800 kg m^?2 s^?1, to evaluate their effect on pressure drop. The saturation temperatures investigated here correspond to reduced pressures between 0.38 and 0.77. The pressure drop models are developed using a microchannel flow regime map and the void fraction models presented by the authors in previous work. The resulting model predicts 85.5% of the data within ±25%. Part II of the study presents a corresponding heat transfer model.     

R1234yf Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Inside a 2.4-mm Microfin Tube

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an experimental study on R1234yf flow boiling inside a mini microfin tube with an inner diameter at the fin tip of 2.4 mm. R1234yf is a new refrigerant with an extremely low global warming potential (GWP <1), proposed as a possible substitute for the common R134a, whose GWP is about 1300. The mass flux was varied between 375 and 940 kg m^?2 s^?1, heat flux from 10 to 50 kW m^?2, and vapor quality from 0.1 to 1. The saturation temperature at the inlet of the test section was kept constant and equal to 30°C. The wide range of operative test conditions permitted highlighting the effects of mass flux, heat flux, and vapor quality on the thermal and hydraulic behavior during the flow boiling mechanism inside such a mini microfin tube. The results show that at low heat flux the phase-change process is mainly controlled by two-phase forced convection, and at high heat flux by nucleate boiling. The two-phase frictional pressure drop increases with increasing both mass velocity and vapor quality. Dry-out was observed only at the highest heat flux, at vapor qualities of around 0.94–0.95.     

Prediction of Pressure Drop for Flow Boiling in Rectangular Multi-Microchannel Heat Sinks

In this study, two new correlations are developed to predict pressure drop for the flow boiling in micro systems with low mass flux. The correlations developed rely on extensive experimental results. Experiments are conducted for flow boiling in nine different silicon multichannel heat sinks with deionized water. In the experiments, mass fluxes of 51–324 kg?m^?2?s^?1, wall heat fluxes of 36–121.8 kW?m^?2, exit vapor qualities of 0.04–0.81, liquid-only Reynolds number of 20.3–89.4, aspect ratios of 0.37–5.00 and hydraulic diameters of 100–250 µm are tested. At first, validation tests for the single phase have been conducted. Then, some of the well-known existing correlations developed for the prediction of two phase pressure drop are used for comparison of the experimental results obtained. Finally, two new empirical correlations are developed for low mass flux conditions. The first one is for frictional pressure drop component, which is obtained by following a general procedure. The second one is for the prediction of total pressure drop (a dimensionless pressure drop correlation). The latter has been shown to predict better with an overall mean absolute error of 14.5% and, 87.8%, 94.8% and 96.5% of the predictions falling within ±30, ±40 and ±50% error bands, respectively.     

A two-phase flow pattern map for annular channels under a DC applied voltage and the application to electrohydrodynamic convective boiling analysis

An experimental study of tube side boiling heat transfer of HFC-134a has been conducted in a single-pass, counter-current flow heat exchanger under an electric field. By applying 0–8 kV to a concentric inner electrode, the mechanics of EHD induced flow and heat transfer augmentation/suppression have been investigated for flow conditions with inlet qualities of 0% to 60%, mass fluxes from 100 kg/m² s to 500 kg/m² s, and heat flux levels between 10 kW/m² and 20 kW/m². A theoretical Steiner type two-phase flow pattern map for flow boiling in the annular channel under applied DC high voltage is also developed. The flow regimes encountered in the convective boiling process have been reconstructed experimentally and compared with the proposed EHD flow regime map. The results show that when the proposed dimensionless criterion M_d Re² is satisfied, EHD interfacial forces have a strong influence on the flow pattern which is considered to be the primary mechanism affecting the increase in pressure drop and the augmentation or even suppression of heat transfer.     

Saturated flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of refrigerant R-410A in a vertical plate heat exchanger

Saturated flow boiling heat transfer and the associated frictional pressure drop of the ozone friendly refrigerant R-410A (a mixture of 50 wt% R-32 and 50 wt% R-125) flowing in a vertical plate heat exchanger (PHE) are investigated experimentally in the study. In the experiment two vertical counter flow channels are formed in the exchanger by three plates of commercial geometry with a corrugated sinusoidal shape of a chevron angle of 60°. Upflow boiling of saturated refrigerant R-410A in one channel receives heat from the downflow of hot water in the other channel. The experimental parameters in this study include the refrigerant R-410A mass flux ranging from 50 to 125 kg/m² s and imposed heat flux from 5 to 35 kW/m² for the system pressure fixed at 1.08, 1.25 and 1.44 MPa, which respectively correspond to the saturated temperatures of 10, 15 and 20 °C. The measured data showed that both the boiling heat transfer coefficient and frictional pressure drop increase almost linearly with the imposed heat flux. Furthermore, the refrigerant mass flux exhibits significant effect on the saturated flow boiling heat transfer coefficient only at higher imposed heat flux. For a rise of the refrigerant pressure from 1.08 to 1.44 MPa, the frictional pressure drops are found to be lower to a noticeable degree. However, the refrigerant pressure has very slight influences on the saturated flow boiling heat transfer coefficient. Finally, empirical correlations are proposed to correlate the present data for the saturated boiling heat transfer coefficients and friction factor in terms of the Boiling number and equivalent Reynolds number.     

An Experimental Study of Flow Condensation Heat Transfer Inside Circular and Rectangular Mini-Channels

Abstract

By using unique experimental techniques and the careful construction of an experimental apparatus, the characteristics of the local heat transfer were investigated using the condensing R134a two-phase flow in horizontal single mini-channels. The circular channels (D _h = 0.493, 0.691, and 1.067 mm) and rectangular channels (Aspect Ratio = 1.0; D _h = 0.494, 0.658, and 0.972 mm) were tested and compared. Tests were performed for a mass flux of 100, 200, 400, and 600 kg/m²s, a heat flux of 5 to 20 kW/m², and a saturation temperature of 40°C. In this study, the effect of heat flux, mass flux, vapor qualities, hydraulic diameter, and channel geometry on flow condensation were investigated, and the experimental local condensation heat transfer coefficients are shown. The experimental data of condensation Nusselt number are compared with existing correlations.     

Pressure drop characteristics of R134a during flow boiling in a single rectangular micro-channel

The pressure-drop characteristics during flow boiling in a single rectangular micro-channel with hydraulic diameter of 0.68 mm are presented. In the present study, pressure drop was studied at heat flux range of 7.63–49.46 kW/m², mass flux range of 600–1400 kg/m² s, and saturation temperature of 23, 27 and 31 °C. Experimental results indicated that the total pressure was dominated by frictional pressure drop. The increase of mass flux also increased the frictional pressure gradient, whereas the increase of saturation temperature reduced the frictional pressure gradient. In addition, heat flux also had an insignificant effect on the frictional the pressure gradient. A new correlation was also proposed for effective design of micro-channel heat exchanger.     

Measurement and correlation of frictional two-phase pressure drop of R410A/POE oil mixture flow boiling in a 7 mm straight micro-fin tube

Two-phase frictional pressure drop characteristics of R410A/POE oil mixture flow boiling inside a straight micro-fin tube with the outside diameter of 7.0 mm were investigated experimentally. Experimental parameters include the evaporation temperature of 5 °C, the mass flux from 200 to 400 kg/(m² s), the heat flux from 7.56 to 15.12 kW/m², the inlet vapor quality from 0.2 to 0.7, and nominal oil concentration from 0% to 5%. The test results show that frictional pressure drop of R410A/POE oil mixture increases with the mass flux, the presence of oil enhances two-phase frictional pressure drop, and the effect of oil on frictional pressure drop is more evident at higher vapor qualities where the local oil concentrations are higher. New correlations to predict the local frictional pressure drop of R410A/POE oil mixture flow boiling inside the straight micro-fin tube are developed based on local properties of refrigerant–oil mixture, and the measured local frictional pressure drop is well correlated with the empirical correlations proposed by the authors.     

Experimental Study on Subcooled Flow Boiling in Horizontal Microtubes and Effect of Heated Length

ABSTRACT

In this study, subcooled flow boiling was investigated in horizontal microtubes. Experiments were conducted using deionized water as the working fluid over a mass flux range of 4000–7000 kg m^?2s^?1 in microtubes with inner and outer diameters of ～600 and ～900 μm, respectively. Microtubes with lengths of 3, 6, and 12 cm were tested to clarify the effect of heated length on flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics. A force analysis related to two-phase flow was conducted to understand the effect of forces on bubble dynamics. Pressure drop and heat transfer data in flow boiling were acquired. Experimental heat flux data were compared with partial boiling heat flux correlations, and good agreements were obtained. Pressure drop was larger in longer microtubes in comparison to shorter ones, while higher heat fluxes were obtained in shorter microtubes at the same wall superheat. Two-phase heat transfer coefficient increased with the microtube length due to lower temperature difference between wall temperature and bulk fluid temperature in longer microtubes. Higher heat fluxes achieved in shorter microtubes at the same wall superheat imply higher critical heat fluxes in shorter microtubes.     

Prediction of two-phase pressure drop and void fraction in microchannels using probabilistic flow regime mapping

Probabilistic two-phase flow map pressure drop and void fraction models are developed for 6-port microchannels in order to provide a more accurate and common means of predicting void fraction and pressure drop. The models are developed for R134a, R410A, and air–water in 6-port microchannels at 10 °C saturation temperatures, qualities from 0 to 1, and mass fluxes varying from 50 to 300 kg/m² s. The probabilistic flow map models developed are found to accurately predict void fraction and pressure drop for the entire quality range and for all three fluids.     

Experiments on the characteristics of evaporation of R410A in brazed plate heat exchangers with different geometric configurations

Experiments on the evaporative heat transfer and pressure drop in the brazed plate heat exchangers were performed with refrigerants R410A and R22. The plate heat exchangers with different 45°, 35°, and 20° chevron angles are used. Varying the mass flux of refrigerant (13–34 kg/m² s), the evaporating temperature (5, 10 and 15 °C), the vapor quality (0.9–0.15) and heat flux (2.5, 5.5 and 8.5 kW/m²), the evaporation heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops were measured. The heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing vapor quality and decreasing evaporating temperature at a given mass flux in all plate heat exchangers. The pressure drop increases with increasing mass flux and quality and with decreasing evaporating temperature and chevron angle. It is found that the heat transfer coefficients of R410A are larger than those of R22 and the pressure drops of R410A are less than those of R22. The empirical correlations of Nusselt number and friction factor are suggested for the tested PHEs. The deviations between correlations and experimental data are within ±25% for Nusselt number and ±15% for friction factor.     

Flow Boiling Heat Transfer of Refrigerant R-134a in Copper Microchannel Heat Sink

In this paper we present experimental data on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics at flow boiling of refrigerant R-134a in a horizontal microchannel heat sink. The primary objective of this study was to experimentally establish how the local heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop correlate with the heat flux, mass flux, and vapor quality. The copper microchannel heat sink contains 21 microchannels with 335 × 930 μm² cross section. The microchannel plate and heating block were divided by the partition wall for the local heat flux measurements. Distribution of local heat transfer coefficients along the length and width of the microchannel plate was measured in the range of external heat fluxes from 50 to 500 kW/m²; the mass flux varied within 200–600 kg/m²-s, and pressure varied within 6–16 bar. The obvious impact of heat flux on the magnitude of heat transfer coefficient was observed. It showed that nucleate boiling is the dominant mechanism for heat transfer. A new model of flow boiling heat transfer, considering nucleate boiling suppression and liquid film evaporation, was proposed and verified experimentally in this paper.     

Experimental Investigation of Two-Phase Pressure Drop in a Microchannel

Experimental results of two-phase pressure drop in a horizontal circular microchannel are reported in this paper. A test tube was made of fused silica having an internal diameter of 781 μm with a total length of 261 mm and a heated length of 191 mm. The outer surface of the test tube was coated with an electrically conductive thin layer of ITO (indium tin oxide) for direct heating of the test section. Refrigerants R134a and R245fa were used as the working fluids, and mass flux during the experiments was varied between 100 and 650 kg/m²-s. Experiments were performed at two different system pressures corresponding to saturation temperatures of 25°C and 30°C for R134a and at three different system pressures corresponding to saturation temperatures of 30°C, 35°C, and 40°C for R245fa. Two-phase frictional pressure drop characteristics with variation of mass flux, vapor fraction, saturation temperature, and heat flux were explored in detail. Finally, the prediction capability of some well-known correlations available in the literature, some developed for macrochannels and others especially developed for microchannels, was assessed.     

A complete evaluation method for the experimental data of flow boiling in smooth tubes

A complete solution for boiling phenomena in smooth tubes has been giving as a procedure regarding with the calculation of convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop using accurate experimental data validated by flow regime maps and sight glasses on the experimental facility. The experimental study is conducted in order to investigate the effect of operating parameters on flow boiling convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of R134a. The smooth tube having 8.62 mm inner diameter and 1100 mm length is used in the experiments. The effect of mass flux, saturation temperature and heat flux is researched in the range of 290–381 kg/m² s, 15–22 °C and 10–15 kW/m², respectively. The experiments revealed that the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop are significantly affected by mass flux for all tested conditions. Moreover, the experimental results are compared with well-known heat transfer coefficient and frictional pressure drop correlations given in the literature. In addition, 122 number of heat transfer and pressure drop raw experimental data is given for researchers to validate their theoretical models.