Numerical Simulation of Capillary Tube for Selected Refrigerants Using Homogeneous Equilibrium Model

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Praveen Alok ◽  
Debjyoti Sahu

In this work, a set of computational investigation results of two-phase refrigerant flow through adiabatic capillary are presented. There are various sizes of capillary tubes that can be selected related to commercially available copper tubes. Earlier refrigerants and new refrigerants like R12, R22, R134a, R410A and R32 are used for the flow analysis. Homogeneous-equilibrium model is employed with user-defined properties of the refrigerants for computation using ANSYS CFX. Several important parameters can be predicted rapidly and accurately using this method such as refrigerant mass flow rate, vapor mass fraction, local Mach no. etc. The mean deviation in mass flow rate is found to be [Formula: see text]1.18% for the same length of capillary tube and the mean deviation of tube length is found to be [Formula: see text]1.48% for the same experimental mass flow rate with choked flow condition.

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (03) ◽  
pp. 2050024
Author(s):  
Pravin Jadhav ◽  
Neeraj Agrawal

The flow characteristics of CO2 refrigerant are numerically studied for an adiabatic spirally coiled capillary tube employing choked flow conditions. The mass, momentum and energy conservation equations are used to develop a numerical model. The existing model is verified with the published results. The choked flow behavior at various geometric parameters viz. tube diameter and spiral pitch is studied. Similarly, the influence of these parameters on the mass flow rate through the tube is observed. A significant change in mass flow rate is due to a change in tube diameter, whereas a minimal variation is observed with the change in surface roughness and spiral pitch. Moreover, it is observed that the coiling effect has a significant influence on the flow behavior of the spiral capillary tube. As the pressure decreases, from unchoked to the choked pressure in the evaporator by 63.46%, the mass flow rate increases by 9.46% only. The capillary tube choking is circumvented by increasing spiral pitch, tube diameter and decreasing the length of the tube. A unique nomogram is developed that gives the best understanding of choked and unchoked flow conditions, that graphical representation is useful to design the spirally coiled capillary tube. By using that, the choked length is identified for the known mass flow rate, even more, the choked mass flow rate is known for a given tube length. Moreover, for the given tube length and evaporator temperature, a nomogram is useful to the known choked values of mass flow rate and exit values of the evaporator pressure and quality of refrigerant.


2014 ◽  
Vol 960-961 ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Yan Sheng Xu

A stepped capillary tube consisting of two serially connected capillary tubes with different diameters is invented to replace the conventional expansion device. The mass flow rate of refrigerant R410A in stepped capillary tubes with different size were tested. The model of stepped capillary tube is proposed, and its numerical algorithm for tube length and mass flow rate is developed. The experimental results show that the performance comparing between stepped capillary tube system and capillary tube assembly system, the cooling capacity is reduced by 0.3%, the energy efficiency ratio (EER) is equal to each other, the heating capacity is increased by 0.3%, the coefficient of performance (COP) is decreased by 0.3%. That is to say, the performance index of the two kinds of throttle mechanism is almost identical. It indicates that the stepped capillary tube can replace the capillary tube assembly in the R410A heat pump type air conditioner absolutely. The model is validated with experimental data, and the results show that the model can be used for sizing and rating stepped capillary tube.


Author(s):  
Badrish Pandey ◽  
Desireddy Shashidhar Reddy ◽  
Mohd. Kaleem Khan ◽  
Manabendra Pathak

The present research work is undertaken to develop ASHRAE like standard rating charts for currently used refrigerants R-134a and R-410A and their potential low global warming potential (GWP) substitutes R-1234yf and R-32, respectively. A self-adjustable mass prediction algorithm has been developed using an averaging technique. Based on this, a matlab code dynamically linked to refprop v. 9.0 software has been developed that solves governing equations of mass, momentum, and energy. Two-phase flow inside the capillary tube is assumed homogeneous and metastability is ignored in the proposed model. The proposed numerical models are in good agreement with the available experimental data with overall percentage mean deviation is less than 6%. Coil diameter plays an important role in adjusting the mass flow rate in the helical capillary tube. Coiling of capillary tube causes an increase in friction pressure drop and a reduction in refrigerant mass flow rate. It has been found that the mass flow rate reduces by about 5% as coil diameter is reduced from 120 to 20 mm.


1996 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuncay Yilmaz ◽  
Saban U¨nal

Capillary tubes are used widely in small refrigeration systems. It is necessary to design the capillary tube, but there does not exist any analytical equation which allows the determination of capillary tube length or mass flow rate for all refrigerants. In this work, an analytical equation is derived which allows to design the capillary tubes. The comparison with existing methods and experimentally obtained values using the refrigerants R12, R22, R113, R114, R134a, and R600a has turned out to be satisfactory.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (04) ◽  
pp. 1450022 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHI ZHANG ◽  
YING WANG ◽  
JIANGPING CHEN

Mal-distribution of refrigerant in a cross-flow type evaporator with parallel paths is very important, which can lead to a loss of heat exchanger capacity to 25%. Distributors are used to balance the two-phase refrigerant distributions in each path. Apart from the structural factors, there are other factors influencing the performance of distributor greatly. In this paper, influences of several nonstructural factors on reservoir distributor are investigated experimentally under varied working conditions. The inlet tube configuration, installation orientation and capillary tube length are also studied. One experiment apparatus is developed to measure the refrigerant mass flow rate and the quality based on R410A air conditioner. It is found that influence caused by inlet tube before the distributor is small. The average STD is only 2.76%. Influence caused by orientation is broad. The average STD is less than 9% on the orientation of 15°. On the orientation of 90°, STDs of different conditions are all more than 40%. For orientation, mass flow rate sensitivity is larger than quality sensitivity. Capillary tubes with different length can be used to adjust distribution. Average STD with sizable capillary length difference is 9.47%. It means that only small mal-distribution can be adjusted by using different-length capillary tubes. Capillary tube length sensitivity increases with the increase of difference between outlet tubes or the decrease of average length of outlet tubes.


Author(s):  
S. Elhanafi ◽  
K. Farhang

This paper considers leakage in mechanical seals under hydrostatic operating condition. A contact model based on the Greenwood and Williamson contact of rough surfaces is developed for treating problems involving mechanical seals in which both the micron scale roughness of the seal face and its macro scale profile are used to obtain either a closed-form equation or a nonlinear equation relating mean plane separation to the mass flow rate. The equations involve the micron scale geometry of the rough surfaces and physical parameter of the seal and carriage. Under hydrostatic condition, it is shown that there is an approximate closed-form solution in which mass flow rate in terms of the mean plane separation, or alternatively, the mean plane separation in terms of the leakage mass flow rate is found. Equations pertaining to leakage in nominally flat seal macro profile is considered and closed form equation relating to leakage flow rate to pressure difference is obtained that contain macro and micron geometries of the seal.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-26
Author(s):  
Vladimir Kornilov ◽  
Andrey Boiko ◽  
Ivan Kavun ◽  
Anatoliy Popkov

A generalized analysis of the results of numerical and experimental studies of air blowing into a turbulent boundary layer through finely perforated surface consisting of alternating permeable and impermeable sections of varying length providing a sudden change in the flow conditions at the boundaries of these sections is presented. The air blowing coefficient Cb determined by the mass flow rate per unit area of the active perforated sample varied in the range from 0 to 0.008. It is shown that as Cb grows, the maximum reduction in the mean surface skin-friction coefficient CF, which is the value through the permeable area of perforated sample, reaches about 65 %. When keeping the equal mass flow rate Q for all tested combinations, the mean skin-friction coefficient remains constant, independent of geometrical parameters of permeable and impermeable sections. Increasing the length of the last permeable section leads to the growth of relaxation region which is characterized by the reduced skin friction values on the impermeable part of the flat plate.


Author(s):  
M. K. Mittal ◽  
R. Kumar ◽  
A. Gupta

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of coiling on the flow characteristics of R-407C in an adiabatic spiral capillary tube. The characteristic coiling parameter for a spiral capillary tube is the coil pitch; hence, the effect of the coil pitch on the mass flow rate of R-407C was studied on several capillary tube test sections. It was observed that the coiling of the capillary tube significantly reduced the mass flow rate of R-407C in the adiabatic spiral capillary tube. In order to quantify the effect of coiling, the experiments were also conducted for straight a capillary tube, and it was observed that the coiling of the capillary tube reduced the mass flow rate in the spiral tube in the range of 9–18% as compared with that in the straight capillary tube. A generalized nondimensional correlation for the prediction of the mass flow rates of various refrigerants was developed for the straight capillary tube on the basis of the experimental data of R-407C of the present study, and the data of R-134a, R-22, and R-410A measured by other researchers. Additionally, a refrigerant-specific correlation for the spiral capillary was also proposed on the basis of the experimental data of R-407C of the present study.


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