Experimental Investigation on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of HFC-134a inside a Vertical Helically Coiled Tube

An investigation on flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of HFC-134a inside a vertical helically coiled concentric tube-in-tube heat exchanger has been experimentally carried out. The test section is a six-turn helically coiled tube with 5.786-m length, in which refrigerant HFC-134a flowing inside the inner tube is heated by the water flowing in the annulus. The diameter and the pitch of the coil are 305 mm and 45 mm, respectively. The outer diameter of the inner tube and its thickness are respectively 9.52 and 0.62 mm. The inner diameter of the outer tube is 29 mm. The average vapor qualities in test section were varied from 0.1 to 0.8. The tests were conducted with three different mass velocities of 112, 132, and 152 kg/m²-s. Analysis of obtained data showed that increasing of both the vapor qualities and the mass fluxes leads to higher heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops. Also, it was observed that the heat transfer coefficient is enhanced and also the pressure drop is increased when a helically coiled tube is used instead of a straight tube. Based on the present experimental results, a correlation was developed to predict the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient in vertical helically coiled tubes.