A New Model for Predicting Falling Film Evaporation Heat Transfer Coefficients

Author(s):  
Apurva Baruah ◽  
Sunil Mehendale

For falling film evaporation, the most important considerations from a thermal design standpoint are the onset of film dryout and the local heat transfer coefficients in partially and fully wet conditions. Previous methods developed for the prediction of (i) pool boiling heat transfer coefficient (HTCs), (ii) the onset of dryout, and (iii) falling film heat transfer coefficient consist of empirical, tube-specific constants which are quite difficult, if not impossible, to determine, and hence have limited utility. New methods to predict these parameters have been developed in the present study, which eliminate the special constants by incorporating dimensionless parameters that capture the effect of refrigerant properties and macro-level tube-geometry. The predictions of the new model have been found to be better than or comparable to those of the best available existing models.

Author(s):  
Lei Wang ◽  
Weiyu Tang ◽  
Limin Zhao ◽  
Wei Li

Abstract An experimental investigation was conducted on falling film evaporation along two porous tubes, which were sintered by stainless-steel powder with a diameter of 0.45 and 1 um, respectively. The test section is a 2 m long sintered tube with an outer diameter of 25 mm and a wall thickness of 2 mm. During the experiment, the pressure inside the tube was maintained at 1 atm, the inlet temperature was 373 K, and mass flux ranged from 0.51 to 1.36 kg/ (m s). Conditions of the steam outside the pipe, which was the heat source, were fixed, while the fouling tests were carried out at a constant mass flow of 0.74 kg/ (m s) using high-concentration brine as work fluid. The overall heat transfer coefficient under different working conditions was tested and compared with the stainless steel smooth tube of the same dimensions. The heat transfer coefficient of the two porous stainless tubes are about 35% and 20% lower than that of the smooth one, showing an inferior effect because the steam in the pores of the pipe wall during the infiltration process will reduce the heat conductivity. The heat transfer coefficient of the smooth tube deteriorated severely due to the deposition of calcium carbonate, which had little effect on the sintered tubes. Besides, the fouling weight of porous tubes is 2.01 g and 0 g compared with 5.52 g of the smooth tube.


1997 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. SELWYN JEBSON ◽  
HONG CHEN

The performances of falling film evaporators used in the New Zealand dairy industry for concentrating whole milk were evaluated by determining kg steam used/kg water evaporated, and the heat transfer coefficient of each pass in the evaporators. A specially written computer program was used to calculate the results. The heat transfer coefficients varied from 0·3 to 3·0 kW/m2K, and the steam consumption from 0·10 to 0·39 kg steam/kg evaporation, depending on the number of effects. The steam consumptions for whole and skim milk were similar. The momentum of the vapours passing down the tubes, the temperature difference across the tubes, the viscosity of the feed and the liquid loading were found to be the main factors controlling the heat transfer coefficient. A correlation between the heat transfer coefficient and these factors is presented, and other factors likely to have an influence on the performance are discussed. The correlation is compared with that obtained for skim milk.


Author(s):  
Junichi Ohara ◽  
Shigeru Koyama

The characteristics of heat transfer are investigated experimentally for the vertical falling film evaporation of binary refrigerant mixture HFC134a/HCFC123 in a rectangular minichannels consisting of offset strip fins. The refrigerant liquid is uniformly supplied to the channel through a distributor. The liquid flowing down vertically is heated electrically from the rear wall of the channel and evaporated. To observe the flow patterns during the evaporation process directly, the small circular window is set at the center of every section on the front wall. The experimental parameters are as follows: the mass velocity G = 28∼70 kg/(m2s), the heat flux q = 30∼50 kW/m2 and the pressure P ≈ 100∼260 kPa. In the case of large mass velocity G ≥ 55 kg/(m2s), the value of heat transfer coefficient becomes lower with increase of mass fraction of low-boiling component HFC134a wb in the region of x ≥ 0.3. The main reason for this inclination of α is considered that shearing force acts on the liquid-vapor interface becomes smaller because of vapor velocity suppressed by higher pressure in the test evaporator in the case of larger mass fraction of low-boiling component. Additionally, mass diffusion resistances formed on each side of vapor and liquid phase along the liquid-vapor interface are considered as a possible cause of reduction in the heat transfer coefficient α with increase of mass fraction wb. In the region of x ≥ 0.8, α descend rapidly despite the difference in the value of wb. It can be attributed to dry-out state of heat transfer area. Heat transfer coefficient derived from experiments is compared with that calculated from empirical correlation equation for heat transfer coefficient of pure refrigerant in a vertical falling film plate-fin evaporator.


Author(s):  
Xingsen Mu ◽  
Yong Yang ◽  
Shengqiang Shen ◽  
Gangtao Liang ◽  
Luyuan Gong

The horizontal-tube falling film evaporation is a widely adopted technique in multiple-effect distillation (MED) desalination plant due to the higher heat transfer coefficient under quite small temperature differences. In the present study, an experimental platform for horizontal-tube falling film evaporation was set up to measure its heat transfer characteristics. Results indicate that heat transfer coefficient (h) for both fresh water and seawater are almost independent with heat flux. The h increases firstly and then decreases with growth of Re. Along the tube circumference, the h increases after decreasing. In addition, the distribution of h for fresh water and seawater at the different evaporation temperatures and Reynolds number (Re) are also provided.


Author(s):  
Tailian Chen

Abstract In this work, heat transfer coefficient during condensation of a refrigerant on the outside surface of a copper tube with wavy fins was experimentally investigated. To fully characterize the condensation heat transfer, the experiments were conducted under two conditions: no refrigerant overfeed and subject to various degree inundation. The results under the condition of no overfeed are compared with the Beatty and Katz model. While the trend of degradation with increasing subcooling was in good agreement with the model (within 5%), the condensation heat transfer coefficients from the wavy fins were 11–15% higher. Based on the Nusselt model, the surface tension effect is not taken into account in the Beatty and Katz model, which plays an important role in condensation on a surface with fins. The photographs taken during the experiments showed that the condensate dripping columns have a pitch is in agreement with that proposed by Yung et al. [24] for falling film evaporation applications. The second part of the experiments under the various degree of inundation provides further insight into the heat transfer capability of the surface with wavy fins.


Author(s):  
Junichi Ohara ◽  
Shigeru Koyama

The characteristics of heat transfer and flow patterns are investigated experimentally for the vertical falling film evaporation of pure refrigerant HCFC123 in a rectangular minichannels consisting of offset strip fins. The refrigerant liquid is uniformly supplied to the channel through a distributor. The liquid flowing down vertically is heated electrically from the rear wall of the channel and evaporated. To observe the flow patterns during the evaporation process directly, a transparent vinyl chloride resin plate is placed as the front wall. The experimental parameters are as follows: the mass velocity G = 28∼70 kg/(m2s), the heat flux q = 20∼50 kW/m2 and the pressure P ≈ 100 kPa. It is clarified that the heat transfer coefficient α depends on G and q in the region of vapor quality x ≥ 0.3 while there is little influence of G and q in the region x ≤ 0.3. From the direct observation using a high speed video camera and a digital still camera, flow patterns are classified into five types. Then the empirical correlation equations for evaporation heat transfer coefficient on a vertical falling film plate fin evaporator with minichannels are proposed. From the physical model to evaluate the heat transfer coefficient of the minichannel surface with fins, the characteristics of fin efficiency is clarified that the average value of fin efficiency is about 0.6 and the distributive characteristics of fin efficiency is roughly inverse of heat transfer coefficient characteristics.


2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.-H. Chien ◽  
R.-H. Chen

AbstractThis study investigates evaporation heat transfer performance of refrigerant R-134a falling film on three horizontal copper tubes in a vertical column. Experiments were performed at saturation temperatures of 10 and 26.7°C. The liquid flows through a liquid feeder with a row of circular holes at a rate of 0.0075 ∼ 0.0363kg/ms, while heat fluxes varied from 4.5 to 48.5kW/m2. A smooth tube, a fin tube of 0.4mm fin height, 60FPI (Fins Per Inch), and a new boiling enhanced tube (mesh tube) were tested. The test results show that heat transfer coefficient of the smooth tube increases with increasing heat flux and fluid temperature, and increases slightly with increasing flow rate before dry-out occurs. At low flow rates (less than 0.015kg/ms) or when Ref (≤ 255), the fin tube is in thin film evaporation mode and results in a large heat transfer coefficient. At high flow rates (0.0225, 0.03, and 0.0375kg/ms) the falling film evaporation curves are similar to those in pool boiling. For all tubes, the fluid temperature and the flow rate have only minor influences on heat transfer coefficient before dry-out occurs. The 60 FPI tube and the mesh tube enhance the falling film evaporation heat transfer coefficient 6.3 ∼ 8.29 fold and 1.9 ∼ 5.0 fold, respectively, as compared with the smooth tube. A new correlation of falling film evaporation, accounting for contributions of nucleate boiling and spray convection, is proposed. It predicts h-values of the falling film evaporation data of the smooth surface within ±30%.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shengqiang Shen ◽  
Xue Chen ◽  
Xingsen Mu ◽  
Changkun Jiang

The overall heat transfer process in a horizontal tube falling film evaporator is mainly influenced by the falling film evaporation outside horizontal tube due to the average heat transfer coefficient which is about 50% of that of the condensation inside tube. A series of experimental studies were conducted to investigate the heat transfer coefficients of the falling film evaporation outside the horizontal tube with parameters such as the spray density, the evaporation temperature, the salinity, and the tube spacing. Experiments were conducted by using Al-brass tubes with 19 mm outer diameter and 1600 mm length. The horizontal tubes are arranged vertically in the evaporator. The test tube is heated by an internal electric heater with uniform heat flux. Temperatures of the test tube surface and saturated vapor measured by thermocouples are used to calculate the heat transfer coefficients. The seawater with salinity of 1.5%, 3.0%, and 4.5% was used as experimental fluid. The spray density varied between 0.017 and 0.087 kg/(m s), and the evaporation temperature was controlled in the range of 50–70 °C. Results show that the average heat transfer coefficients of water under different salinities increase obviously with the spray density until a certain point. The average heat transfer coefficients of seawater decrease slightly with the evaporation temperature, decrease with the salinity, increase with the tube spacing, and are almost independent of the heat flux. In addition, the comparisons with 25.4 mm outer diameter tube and the circumferential distribution of local heat transfer coefficient are presented in this study.


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