Experimental Study of Adiabatic Water Liquid-Vapor Two-Phase Pressure Drop Across an Array of Staggered Micro-Pin-Fins

Author(s):  
Christopher A. Konishi ◽  
Weilin Qu ◽  
Ben Jasperson ◽  
Frank E. Pfefferkorn ◽  
Kevin T. Turner

This study concerns pressure drop of adiabatic water liquid-vapor two-phase flow across an array of 1950 staggered square micro-pin-fins having a 200×200 micron cross-section by a 670 micron height. The ratios of longitudinal pitch and transverse pitch to pin-fin equivalent diameter are equal to 2. An inline immersion heater upstream of the micro-pin-fin test module was employed to produce liquid-vapor two-phase mixture, which flowed across the micro-pin-fin array. The test module was well insulated to maintain an adiabatic condition. Four maximum mass velocities of 184, 235, 337, and 391 kg/m2s, and a range of vapor qualities for each maximum mass velocity were tested. Measured pressure drop increases drastically with increasing vapor quality. Nine existing two-phase pressure drop models and correlations were assessed. The Lockhart-Martinelli correlation for laminar liquid-laminar vapor combination in conjunction with a single-phase friction factor correlation proposed for the present micro-pin-fin array provided the best agreement with the data.

2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Konishi ◽  
Weilin Qu ◽  
Frank E. Pfefferkorn

This study concerns pressure drop of adiabatic water liquid-vapor two-phase flow across an array of 1950 staggered square micropin-fins having a 200×200 μm cross section by 670 μm height. The ratios of longitudinal pitch and transverse pitch to pin-fin equivalent diameter are equal to 2. An inline immersion heater upstream of the micropin-fin test module was employed to produce liquid-vapor two-phase mixture, which flowed across the micropin-fin array. The test module was well insulated to maintain adiabatic condition. Four maximum mass velocities of 184 kg/m2 s, 235 kg/m2 s, 337 kg/m2 s, and 391 kg/m2 s, and a range of vapor qualities for each maximum mass velocity were tested. Measured pressure drop increases drastically with increasing vapor quality. Nine existing two-phase pressure drop models and correlations were assessed. The Lockhart–Martinelli correlation for laminar liquid-laminar vapor combination in conjunction with a single-phase friction factor correlation proposed for the present micropin-fin array provided the best agreement with the data.


Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Mita ◽  
Weilin Qu ◽  
Frank E. Pfefferkorn

This paper presents a numerical study of pressure drop associated with water liquid single-phase flow across an array of staggered micro-pin-fins having circular cross-section. The numerical simulations were validated against previously obtained experimental results using an array of staggered circular micro-pin-fins having the following dimensions: 180 micron diameter and 683 micron height. The longitudinal pitch and transverse pitch of the micro-pin-fins are equal to 399 microns. The effects of endwalls on pressure drop characteristics were then explored numerically. Six different micro-pin-fin height to diameter ratios were studied with seven different Reynolds numbers. All simulations were performed at room temperature (23°C). It was seen that for any given Reynolds number, as the pin height to diameter ratio increased, the pressure drop and resulting non-dimensional friction factor decreased.


Author(s):  
Santosh Krishnamurthy ◽  
Yoav Peles

Flow patterns, void fraction and pressure drop in adiabatic nitrogen-water two phase flows across a bank of micro pin fin were experimentally investigated for Reynolds number ranging from 5 to 50. Staggered cylindrical shaped micro pin fins with diameter and height of 100 μm were micro-fabricated into 1 cm long, 1.8 mm microchannel. Flow patterns were determined by flow visualization and classified as bubbly-slug flow, gas-slug flow, bridged flow and annular flow. The applicability of conventional scale models to predict two-phase frictional pressure drop was also assessed. The two-phase frictional multiplier was found to be a strong function of mass flux and flow patterns unlike the previous results observed in the microchannel studies. It was observed that models from conventional scale systems did not adequately predict the two-phase frictional multiplier at micro-scale and thus, a modified model accounting for mass flux and flow patterns have been developed in this work.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weilin Qu ◽  
Abel Siu-Ho

This Technical Brief is Part II of a two-part study concerning water single-phase pressure drop and heat transfer in an array of staggered micro-pin-fins. This brief reports the pressure drop results. Both adiabatic and diabatic tests were conducted. Six previous friction factor correlations for low Reynolds number (Re<1000) flow in conventional and micro-pin-fin arrays were examined and found underpredicting the adiabatic data except the correlation by Short et al. (2002, “Performance of Pin Fin Cast Aluminum Coldwalls, Part 1: Friction Factor Correlation,” J. Thermophys. Heat Transfer, 16(3), pp. 389–396), which overpredicts the data. A new power-law type of correlation was developed, which showed good agreement with both adiabatic and diabatic data.


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