Experimental Characterization of Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Inside a Tubular Evaporator Utilizing Advanced Microgrooved Surfaces

Author(s):  
Vibhash Jha ◽  
Serguei Dessiatoun ◽  
Michael Ohadi ◽  
Ebrahim Al Hajri

Performance enhancement of heat exchangers with a focus in optimum weight/volume and the amount of working fluid in circulation is of significance to a diverse range of industries. This paper presents heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a compact tubular evaporator which utilizes a manifold force-fed microchannel design. A microgrooved structure with an aspect ratio of 3:1 (channel width of 100 μm and channel height of 300 μm) forms the channels used on the refrigerant side and minichannels of 1 mm depth were used on the water side. The system was tested using R134a as the refrigerant with a refrigerant flow rate of 6 to 22 g/s and water flow rate of 150 to 640 ml/s. Overall heat transfer coefficients of more than 10,000 W/m2 K were obtained with modest values of pressure drop. The present results indicate a significant enhancement in thermal performance when compared to the state-of-the-art technologies in the same application area.

2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Yong and ◽  
K. Sumathy

Quasi-local absorption heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop inside a horizontal tube absorber have been investigated experimentally, with R-22/DMA as the working pair. The absorber is a counterflow coaxial tube-in-tube heat-exchanger with the working fluid flowing in the inner tube while the water moves through the annulus. A large temperature gliding has been experienced during the absorption process. Experimental results show that the heat transfer coefficient of the forced convective vapor absorption process is higher compared to the vertical falling film absorption. A qualitative study is made to analyze the effect of mass flux, vapor quality and solution concentration on pressure drop and heat transfer coefficients. On the basis of the experimental results, a new correlation is proposed whereby the two-phase heat transfer is taken as a product of the forced convection of the absorption and the combined effect of heat and mass transfer at the interface. The correlation is found to predict the experimental data almost within 30 percent.


Author(s):  
C. Aprea ◽  
A. Greco ◽  
G. P. Vanoli

R22 is the most widely employed HCFC working fluid in vapour compression plant. HCFCs must be replaced within 2020. Major problems arise with the substitution of the working fluids, related to the decrease in performance of the plant. Therefore, extremely accurate design procedures are needed. The relative sizing of each of the components of the plant is crucial for cycle performance. For this reason, the knowledge of the new fluids heat transfer characteristics in condensers and evaporators is required. The local heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop of pure R22 and of the azeotropic mixture R507 (R125-R143a 50%/50% in weight) have been measured during convective boiling. The test section is a smooth horizontal tube made of a with a 6 mm I.D. stainless steel tube, 6 m length, uniformly heated by Joule effect. The effects of heat flux, mass flux and evaporation pressure on the heat transfer coefficients are investigated. The evaporating pressure varies within the range 3 ÷10 bar, the refrigerant mass flux within the range 200 ÷ 1000 kg/m2s, the heat flux within 0 ÷ 44 kW/m2. A comparison have been carried out between the experimental data and those predicted by means of the most credited literature relationships.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 1750013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pham-Quang Vu ◽  
Kwang-Il Choi ◽  
Jong-Taek Oh ◽  
Honggi Cho

The condensation heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops of R410A and R22 flowing inside a horizontal aluminum multiport mini-channel tube having 18 channels are investigated. Experimental data are presented for the range of vapor quality from 0.1 to 0.9, mass flux from 50 to 500[Formula: see text]kg/m2s, heat flux from 3 to 15[Formula: see text]kW/m2 and the saturation temperature at 48[Formula: see text]C. The pressure drop across the test section was directly measured by a differential pressure transducer. At a small scale, the noncircular cross-sections can enhance the effect of the surface tension. The average heat transfer coefficient increased with the increase of vapor quality, mass flux and heat flux. Under the same test conditions, the heat transfer coefficients of R22 are higher than those for R410A, the pressure drops for R410A are 7–19% lower than those of R22. The lower pressure drop of R410A has an important advantage as an alternative working fluid for R22 in air-conditioning and heat pump systems.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 7705
Author(s):  
Anas F. A. Elbarghthi ◽  
Mohammad Yousef Hdaib ◽  
Václav Dvořák

Ejector refrigeration systems are rapidly evolving and are poised to become one of the most preferred cooling systems in the near future. CO2 transcritical refrigeration systems have inherently high working pressures and discharge temperatures, providing a large volumetric heating capacity. In the current research, the heat ejected from the CO2 gas cooler was proposed as a driving heating source for the compression ejector system, representing the energy supply for the generator in a combined cycle. The local design approach was investigated for the combined plate-type heat exchanger (PHE) via Matlab code integrated with the NIST real gas database. HFO refrigerants (1234ze(E) and 1234yf) were selected to serve as the cold fluid on the generator flowing through three different phases: subcooled liquid, a two-phase mixture, and superheated vapour. The study examines the following: the effectiveness, the heat transfer coefficients, and the pressure drop of the PHE working fluids under variable hot stream pressures, cold stream flow fluxes, and superheated temperatures. The integration revealed that the cold fluid mixture phase dominates the heat transfer coefficients and the pressure drop of the heat exchanger. By increasing the hot stream inlet pressure from 9 MPa to 12 MPa, the cold stream two-phase convection coefficient can be enhanced by 50% and 200% for R1234yf and R1234ze(E), respectively. Conversely, the cold stream two-phase convection coefficient dropped by 17% and 37% for R1234yf and R1234ze(E), respectively. The overall result supports utilising the ejected heat from the CO2 transcritical system, especially at high CO2 inlet pressures and low cold channel flow fluxes. Moreover, R1234ze(E) could be a more suitable working fluid because it possesses a lower pressure drop and bond number.


Author(s):  
Fei Xue ◽  
Mohammad E. Taslim

Impingement cooling in airfoils cooling cavities, solely or combined with film and convective cooling, is a common practice in gas turbines. Depending on the cooling cavity design, the mass flow rate through individual crossover holes could vary significantly in the flow direction thus creating jets of different strengths in the target cavity. This jet flow variation, in turn, creates an impingement heat transfer coefficient variation along the channel. A test section, simulating two adjacent cooling cavities on the trailing side of an airfoil, is made up of two channels with trapezoidal cross-sectional areas. On the partition wall between the two channels, eleven crossover holes create the jets. Two distinct exit flow arrangements are investigated — a) jets, after interaction with the target surface, are turned towards the target channel exit axially and b) jets are exited from a row of racetrack-shaped slots along the target channel. Flow measurements are reported for individual holes and heat transfer coefficients on the eleven target walls downstream the jets are measured using the steady-state liquid crystal thermography technique. Smooth as well as rib-roughened target surfaces with four rib geometries (0°,45°, 90° and 135° rib angles) are tested. Correlations are developed for mass flow rate through each crossover hole for cases with different number of crossover holes, based on the pressure drop across the holes. Heat transfer coefficient variations along the target channel for all rib geometries and flow conditions are reported for a range of 5000 to 50000 local jet Reynolds numbers. Major conclusions of this study are: 1) A correlation is developed to successfully predict the mass flow rates through individual crossover holes for geometries with six to eleven crossover holes, based on the pressure drop across the holes, 2) impingement heat transfer coefficient correlates well with the local jet Reynolds number for both exit flow arrangements, and 3) the case of axial flow in the target channel exiting from the channel end, at higher jet Reynolds numbers, produced higher heat transfer coefficients than those in the case of flow exiting through a row of slots along the target channel opposite to the crossover holes.


Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Jones ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

The influence of surface roughness on flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop in microchannels is experimentally explored. The microchannel heat sink employed in the study consists of 10 parallel, 25.4 mm long channels with nominal dimensions of 500 μm × 500 μm. The channels were produced by saw-cutting. Two of the test piece surfaces were roughened to varying degrees with electrical discharge machining (EDM). The roughness average, Ra, varied from 1.4 μm for the as-fabricated, saw-cut surface to 3.9 and 6.7 μm for the two roughened EDM surfaces. Deionized water was used as the working fluid. Experiments indicate that the surface roughness has little influence on boiling incipience and only a minor impact on saturated boiling heat transfer coefficients at lower heat fluxes. For wall heat fluxes above 1500 kW/m2, the two EDM surfaces (3.9 and 6.7 μm) have similar heat transfer coefficients that were 20 to 35% higher than those measured for the saw cut surface (1.4 μm). Analysis of the pressure drop measurements indicates that only the roughest surface (6.7 μm) has an adverse effect on the two-phase pressure drop.


1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 1041-1047 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Schlager ◽  
M. B. Pate ◽  
A. E. Bergles

Using R-22 as the working fluid, a series of tests was performed to determine the evaporation and condensation performance of three 12.7-mm o.d. tubes having many small, spiral inner fins. The tubes, referred to as microfin tubes, had a 11.7-mm maximum i.d., 60 or 70 fins with heights ranging from 0.15 to 0.30 mm, and spiral angles from 15 to 25 deg. A smooth tube was also tested to establish a basis of comparison. The test apparatus had a straight, horizontal test section with a length of 3.67 m and was heated or cooled by water circulated in a surrounding annulus. Nominal evaporation conditions were 0 to 5°C (0.5 to 0.6 MPa) with inlet and outlet qualities of 15 and 85 percent, respectively; condensation conditions were 39 to 42°C (1.5 to 1.6 MPa) with inlet and outlet qualities of 85 and 10 percent, respectively. Mass flux varied from 75 to 400 kg/m2·s. The average heat transfer coefficients in the microfin tubes, based on a nominal equivalent smooth tube area, were 1.6 to 2.2 times larger for evaporation and 1.5 to 2.0 times larger for condensation than those in the smooth tube. The pressure drop increased, but by a smaller factor than the heat transfer coefficient.


2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (10) ◽  
pp. 1050-1059 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Bandhauer ◽  
Akhil Agarwal ◽  
Srinivas Garimella

A model for predicting heat transfer during condensation of refrigerant R134a in horizontal microchannels is presented. The thermal amplification technique is used to measure condensation heat transfer coefficients accurately over small increments of refrigerant quality across the vapor-liquid dome (0<x<1). A combination of a high flow rate closed loop primary coolant and a low flow rate open loop secondary coolant ensures the accurate measurement of the small heat duties in these microchannels and the deduction of condensation heat transfer coefficients from measured UA values. Measurements were conducted for three circular microchannels (0.506<Dh<1.524mm) over the mass flux range 150<G<750kg∕m2s. Results from previous work by the authors on condensation flow mechanisms in microchannel geometries were used to interpret the results based on the applicable flow regimes. The heat transfer model is based on the approach originally developed by Traviss, D. P., Rohsenow, W. M., and Baron, A. B., 1973, “Forced-Convection Condensation Inside Tubes: A Heat Transfer Equation For Condenser Design,” ASHRAE Trans., 79(1), pp. 157–165 and Moser, K. W., Webb, R. L., and Na, B., 1998, “A New Equivalent Reynolds Number Model for Condensation in Smooth Tubes,” ASME, J. Heat Transfer, 120(2), pp. 410–417. The multiple-flow-regime model of Garimella, S., Agarwal, A., and Killion, J. D., 2005, “Condensation Pressure Drop in Circular Microchannels,” Heat Transfer Eng., 26(3), pp. 1–8 for predicting condensation pressure drops in microchannels is used to predict the pertinent interfacial shear stresses required in this heat transfer model. The resulting heat transfer model predicts 86% of the data within ±20%.


Author(s):  
Shang-Feng Yang ◽  
Je-Chin Han ◽  
Salam Azad ◽  
Ching-Pang Lee

This paper experimentally investigates the effect of rotation on heat transfer in typical turbine blade serpentine coolant passage with ribbed walls at low Mach numbers. To achieve the low Mach number (around 0.01) condition, pressurized Freon R-134a vapor is utilized as the working fluid. The flow in the first passage is radial outward, after the 180 deg tip turn the flow is radial inward to the second passage, and after the 180 deg hub turn the flow is radial outward to the third passage. The effects of rotation on the heat transfer coefficients were investigated at rotation numbers up to 0.6 and Reynolds numbers from 30,000 to 70,000. Heat transfer coefficients were measured using the thermocouples-copper-plate-heater regional average method. Heat transfer results are obtained over a wide range of Reynolds numbers and rotation numbers. An increase in heat transfer rates due to rotation is observed in radially outward passes; a reduction in heat transfer rate is observed in the radially inward pass. Regional heat transfer coefficients are correlated with Reynolds numbers for nonrotation and with rotation numbers for rotating condition, respectively. The results can be useful for understanding real rotor blade coolant passage heat transfer under low Mach number, medium–high Reynolds number, and high rotation number conditions.


Author(s):  
Jian-jun Sun ◽  
Jing-xiang Chen ◽  
David J. Kukulka ◽  
Kan Zhou ◽  
Wei Li ◽  
...  

An experiment investigation was performed using R410A in order to determine the single-phase and evaporation heat transfer coefficients on the outside of (i) a smooth tube; (ii) herringbone tube; and (iii) the newly developed Vipertex enhanced surface 1EHT tube; all with the same external diameter (12.7 mm). The nominal evaporation temperature is 279 K, with inlet and outlet qualities of 0.1 and 0.8. Mass fluxes ranged from 10 to 40 kg m−2s−1. Results suggest that the 1EHT tube has excellent heat transfer performance but a higher pressure drop when compared to a smooth tube. Evaporation heat transfer coefficient for the 1EHT is lower than the herringbone tube and the pressure drop is almost the same.


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