Experimental Investigation of Flow Boiling Pressure Drop of R134A in a Microscale Horizontal Smooth Tube

Author(s):  
Cristiano Bigonha Tibiriçá ◽  
Jaqueline Diniz da Silva ◽  
Gherhardt Ribatski

This paper presents new experimental flow boiling pressure drop results in a microscale tube. The experimental data were obtained under diabatic conditions in a horizontal smooth tube with an internal diameter of 2.32 mm. Experiments were performed with R134a as working fluid, mass velocities ranging from 100 kg/m2 s to 600 kg/m2 s, heat flux ranging from 10 kW/m2 to 55 kW/m2, saturation temperatures of 31°C, and exit vapor qualities from 0.20 to 0.99. Flow pattern characterization was also performed from images obtained by high-speed filming. Pressure drop gradients up to 48 kPa/m were measured. These data were carefully analyzed and compared against 13 two-phase frictional pressure drop prediction methods, including both macro- and microscale methods. Comparisons against these methods based on the data segregated according to flow patterns were also performed. Overall, the method by Cioncolini et al. (2009, “Unified Macro-to-Microscale Method to Predict Two-Phase Frictional Pressure Drops of Annular Flows,” Int. J. Multiphase Flow, 35, pp. 1138–1148) provided quite accurate predictions of the present database.

Author(s):  
Cristiano Bigonha Tibiric¸a´ ◽  
Gherhardt Ribatski

This paper presents new experimental flow boiling pressure drop results in a microscale tube. The experimental data were obtained under diabatic conditions in a horizontal smooth tube with internal diameter of 2.3 mm. Experiments were performed with R134a as working fluid, mass velocities ranging from 100 to 600 kg/m2s, heat flux ranging from 10 to 55 kW/m2, saturation temperatures of 31 °C, and exit vapor qualities from 0.20 to 0.99. Flow pattern characterization was also performed from images obtained by high-speed filming. Pressure drops up to 48 kPa/m were measured. These data were carefully analyzed and compared against 13 two-phase frictional pressure drop prediction methods, including both macro- and micro-scale methods. Comparisons against these methods based on the data segregated according to flow patterns were also performed. Overall, the method by Cioncolini et al. [1] provided quite accurate predictions of the present database.


Author(s):  
Chin L. Ong ◽  
John R. Thome

Experimental adiabatic two-phase pressure drops data for refrigerants R134a, R236fa and R245fa during flow boiling in small channels with internal diameters of 1.03, 2.20 and 3.04 mm are presented. The main purpose was to investigate the effects of channel confinement on adiabatic two-phase pressure drops. Thus, the two-phase pressure drop trends were systematically investigated over a wide range of test conditions for all three refrigerants and channel sizes. Statistical comparisons have also been made by comparing the experimental pressure drop data database with various macroscale and microscale prediction methods from the literature. The comparison showed relatively moderate accuracy for three prediction methods developed for macroscale flows, i.e. Baroczy and Chisholm, Friedel and the homogeneous model with the Cicchitti et al. viscosity relation. As for microscale prediction methods, the Cioncolini et al. annular flow model worked best with 68.5% of the data within ± 30%, followed by the Sun and Mishima and the Zhang et al. methods. Combining this database with the LTCM lab’s earlier database for 0.509 and 0.790 mm channels, there appears to be no evidence of a macro-to-microscale transition, at least with respect to two-phase pressure drops.


Author(s):  
M. Hamayun Maqbool ◽  
Bjo¨rn Palm ◽  
R. Khodabandeh ◽  
Rashid Ali

Experiments have been performed to investigate two-phase pressure drop in a circular vertical mini-channel made of stainless steel (AISI 316) with internal diameter of 1.70 mm and a uniformly heated length of 245 mm using ammonia as working fluid. The experiments are conducted for heat flux range of 15 to 350 kW/m2 and mass flux range of 100 to 500 kg/m2s. A uniform heat flux is applied to the test section by DC power supply. Two phase frictional pressure drop variation with mass flux, vapour quality and heat flux was determined. The experimental results are compared to predictive methods available in literature for frictional pressure drop. The Homogeneous model and the correlation of Mu¨ller Steinhagen et al. [14] are in good agreement with our experimental data with MAD of 27% and 26% respectively.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 109-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
YIFENG GAO ◽  
BIN DENG ◽  
GUOLIANG DING ◽  
HAITAO HU ◽  
XIANGCHAO HUANG

This study presents experimental frictional pressure drop for R410A/oil mixture flow boiling in small horizontal smooth tubes with inside diameters of 4.18 mm and 2.0 mm. Experimental conditions cover nominal oil concentrations from 0 to 5%. The test results show that the presence of oil enhances two-phase frictional pressure drop about 0–120% and 0–90% at present test conditions for 4.18 mm I.D. smooth tube and 2.0 mm I.D. smooth tube, respectively, and the enhanced effect is more evident at higher vapor qualities where the local oil concentrations are higher. A new correlation to predict the local frictional pressure drop of R410A/oil mixture flow boiling inside conventional size and small smooth tubes is developed based on local properties of refrigerant–oil mixture, and the experimental data of 4.18 mm I.D. and 2.0 mm I.D. smooth tubes and that of 6.34 mm I.D. smooth tube (Hu et al., 2008) are well-correlated with the new correlation.


Author(s):  
Tao Tong ◽  
Shankar Devasenathipathy ◽  
Je-Young Chang ◽  
John Dirner ◽  
Suzana Prstic ◽  
...  

Two-phase microchannel system is a promising technology to achieve enhanced heat removal and more effective cooling of hotspots. The excellent thermodynamic properties of water make it a prime candidate as the working fluid in two-phase microchannel systems. While typical integrated circuit components require die temperature to remain below 95 °C, most of the earlier microchannel flow boiling studies were conducted at or above ambient pressure, where the saturation temperature of water is equal to or higher than 100 °C. In this paper, we tested flow boiling at sub-atmospheric pressure such that the saturation temperature of water can be significantly reduced below 95 °C. We study the pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of our two-phase cold plate configuration, under uniform and hotspot (non-uniform) heating conditions at sub-atmospheric system pressures. A cold plate with 61 μm wide and 272 μm deep microchannels was tested at two systems pressures of 35 and 46 kPa and at two mass flow rates of 67 and 107 kg/m2-s. High-speed flow imaging was used for identifying flow patterns in the microchannels with the above test conditions. Pressure drop data were compared with the available semi-empirical correlations and the annular flow model. An explanation was proposed for the mismatch between the models under current microchannel configuration.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 101-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Muszyński ◽  
Rafał Andrzejczyk ◽  
Carlos A. Dorao

AbstractThe article presents detailed two-phase adiabatic pressure drops data for refrigerant R134a. Study cases have been set for a mass flux varying from 200 to 400 kg/m2s, at the saturation temperature of 19.4 °C. Obtained experimental data was compared with the available correlations from the literature for the frictional pressure drop during adiabatic flow. Influence of mixture preparation on pressure drop was investigated, for varying inlet subcooling temperature in the heated section. The flow patterns have also been obtained by means of a high-speed camera placed in the visualization section and compared with literature observations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
J. D. Oliveira ◽  
J. B. Copetti ◽  
I. C. Dias ◽  
M. H. Macagnan

Evaporators with mini and micro channels are one of the main focuses in the design and development of equipment applied to compact refrigeration systems. The objective of this work is to investigate pressure drop of natural refrigerant, isobutane (R-600a), in the single-phase flow through two small tubes, with 1.0 mm and 2.6 mm of internal diameter. Also, the pressure drop was analyzed in the boiling flow in a 2.6 mm internal diameter tube. The experimental tests included mass velocities of 188, 240, 280 and 370 kg/(m²s), heat fluxes in the range from 0 to 134 kW/m² and boiling flow the saturation temperature of 22 ºC and vapor quality up to 0.8. It was possible to observe the significant influence of the diameter and mass velocity on the total pressure drop and the frictional pressure drop, respectively. The experimental frictional pressure drop in flow boiling in 2.6 mm of internal diameter was compared with four different correlations in literature.


Author(s):  
Tae-Woo Lim ◽  
Sam-Sang You ◽  
Jong-Su Kim ◽  
Serng-Bae Moon ◽  
Dong-Hoan Seo

This paper deals with an experimental investigation to measure the frictional pressure drops for two-phase flow boiling in a micro-channel with a hydraulic diameter of 500 µm. First, the experimental study is performed under the test conditions: heat fluxes ranging from 100 to 400 kW/m2, vapor qualities from 0 to 0.2, and mass fluxes of 200, 400 and 600 kg/m2s. Then, the frictional pressure drop during flow boiling is estimated using two models: the homogeneous model and the separated flow model. The experimental results show that the two-phase multiplier decreases with the increase of mass flux. In addition, the measured pressure drops are compared with those from a few correlation models available for macro-scales and mini/micro-scales. Finally, the present paper proposes a new correlation for two-phase frictional pressure drops in mini/micro-scales. This correlation model is developed based on the Chisholm constant C as a function of two-phase Reynolds and Weber numbers. It is found that the new correlation satisfactorily predicts the experimental data within mean absolute error (MAE) of 3.9%.


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