Modeling and Design of Micro-Grooved Flat Plate Evaporator
A micro-grooved flat plate evaporator is modeled and its heat transfer characteristics are investigated numerically and experimentally. A test model is developed for the vapor compression cycle evaporator, where pressure gradient drives the vapor and the liquid flow. In this study, the effect of pressure gradient is implicitly introduced through the Smith’s equation for predicting void fraction from given quality. The film thickness profile in the micro region near the contact line is obtained by solving the 4th order differential equation. Then the local heat flux is obtained by assuming that the heat conduction through the liquid is one dimensional in the wall normal direction. The shape of liquid-vapor interface is assumed to be a circular arc in the macro region, whose radius is directly linked to the void fraction. This curvature radius is used as the boundary condition for the micro region model at the micro-macro interface. Finally, the heat transfer coefficient on a micro-grooved flat plate evaporator is measured in a HFC134a experimental loop and compared with the numerical prediction. The present model assumptions are validated and assessed.