NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF FILM DISTRIBUTION IN HORIZONTAL-TUBE FALLING FILM EVAPORATOR

The technique of horizontal-tube falling film has been used in the cooling and heating industries such as refrigeration systems, heating systems and ocean thermal energy conversion systems. The comprehensive performance of evaporator is directly affected by the film distribution characteristics outside tubes. In this paper, numerical investigation was performed to predict the film characteristics outside the tubes in horizontal-tube falling film evaporator. The effects of liquid flow rate, tube diameter and the circular degree of tube on the film thickness were presented. The numerical simulation results were compared with that of the empirical equations for calculating the falling film thickness, and agreements between them were reasonable. Numerical simulation results show that, at the fixed fluid flow density, the liquid film is thicker on the upper and lower tube and the thinnest liquid film appears at angle of about 120°. The results also indicate that, when the fluid flow density decreases to a certain value, the local dryout spot on the surface of the tube would occur. In addition, the film thickness decreases with the increases of the tube diameter at the fixed fluid flow density.