Boiling of R134a in a Plate-Fin Heat Exchanger Having Offset Fins

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chennu Ranganayakulu ◽  
Stephan Kabelac

This paper presents experimental results on boiling heat transfer of R134a in a compact plate fin heat exchanger. The exchanger is made of aluminum and has high density offset fins (30 fins/in.). Such heat exchangers are widely used in air separation industry and aerospace applications because of their high compactness and low weight. The test heat exchanger is attached to a vapor cycle refrigeration basic module to study the effects of boiling phenomena and its influence on performance as there is limited information available for this type of fins. This in turn allows for discussion on boiling mechanism of R134a inside the fins using the water circuit on the other side of the test heat exchanger. The water side single phase heat transfer coefficient (Colburn j factor) is calculated using the cfd tool fluent and validated with available open literature. The results are presented for heat fluxes up to 5500 W/m2 and mass fluxes up to 20 kg/(m2s) with water side flow rate varying from 0.033 to 0.17 kg/s for water temperatures of 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 °C.

Author(s):  
Yao Li ◽  
Haiqing Si ◽  
Jingxuan Qiu ◽  
Yingying Shen ◽  
Peihong Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract The plate-fin heat exchanger has been widely applied in the field of air separation and aerospace due to its high specific surface area of heat transfer. However, the low heat transfer efficiency of its plate bundles has also attracted more attention. It is of great significance to optimize the structure of plate-fin heat exchanger to improve its heat transfer efficiency. The plate bundle was studied by combining numerical simulation with experiment. Firstly, according to the heat and mass transfer theory, the plate bundle calculation model of plate-fin heat exchanger was established, and the accuracy of the UDF (User-Defined Functions) for describing the mass and heat transfer was verified. Then, the influences of fin structure parameters on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of channel were discussed, including the height, spacing, thickness and length of fins. Finally the influence of various factors on the flow field performance under different flow states was integrated to complete the optimal design of the plate bundle.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (10) ◽  
pp. 1106-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Koşar ◽  
Chih-Jung Kuo ◽  
Yoav Peles

Boiling flow of deionized water through 227μm hydraulic diameter microchannels with 7.5μm wide interconnected reentrant cavities at 47 kPa exit pressure has been investigated. Average two-phase heat transfer coefficients have been obtained over effective heat fluxes ranging from 28 to 445W∕cm2 and mass fluxes from 41 to 302kg∕m2s. A map is developed that divides the data into two regions where the heat transfer mechanisms are nucleation or convective boiling dominant. The map is compared to similar atmospheric exit pressure data developed in a previous study. A boiling mechanism transition criterion based on the Reynolds number and the Kandlikar k1 number is proposed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 312-315 ◽  
pp. 548-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Wang ◽  
Khellil Sefiane

Single vapour bubble growth and heat transfer mechanism during flow boiling in a rectangular horizontal mini-channel were experimentally investigated. The hydraulic diameter of the channel was 1454 μm, with an aspect ratio (Win/din) of 10. Degassed FC-72 was used as the working liquid. In this paper, bubble equivalent radius was found to increase linearly till a critical time, beyond which the growth turned into exponential. Bubble growth rate increases with increasing heat flux. Heat transfer mechanisms of the bubble growth at different heat fluxes and mass fluxes were discussed. In addition, the relation between thermal and flow conditions with bubble temporal geometry was explored.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
praveen math

Abstract Shell and Tube heat exchangers are having special importance in boilers, oil coolers, condensers, pre-heaters. They are also widely used in process applications as well as the refrigeration and air conditioning industry. The robustness and medium weighted shape of Shell and Tube heat exchangers make them well suited for high pressure operations. The aim of this study is to experiment, validate and to provide design suggestion to optimize the shell and tube heat exchanger (STHE). The heat exchanger is made of acrylic material with 2 baffles and 7 tubes made of stainless steel. Hot fluid flows inside the tube and cold fluid flows over the tube in the shell. 4 K-type thermocouples were used to read the hot and cold fluids inlet and outlet temperatures. Experiments were carried out for various combinations of hot and cold water flow rates with different hot water inlet temperatures. The flow conditions are limited to the lab size model of the experimental setup. A commercial CFD code was used to study the thermal and hydraulic flow field inside the shell and tubes. CFD methodology is developed to appropriately represent the flow physics and the procedure is validated with the experimental results. Turbulent flow in tube side is observed for all flow conditions, while the shell side has laminar flow except for extreme hot water temperatures. Hence transition k-kl-omega model was used to predict the flow better for transition cases. Realizable k- epsilon model with non-equilibrium wall function was used for turbulent cases. Temperature and velocity profiles are examined in detail and observed that the flow remains almost uniform to the tubes thus limiting heat transfer. Approximately 2/3 rd of the shell side flow does not surround the tubes due to biased flow contributing to reduced overall heat transfer and increased pressure loss. On the basis of these findings an attempt has been made to enhance the heat transfer by inducing turbulence in the shel l side flow. The two baffles were rotated in opposite direction to each other to achieve more circulation in the shell side flow and provide more contact with tube surface. Various positions of the baffles were simulated and studied using CFD analysis and th e results are summarized with respect to heat transfer and pressure loss.


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Cotton ◽  
JenShih Chang ◽  
Mamdouh Shoukri ◽  
Tracey Smith-Pollard

Abstract In order to explore the mechanics of EHD induced flow and heat transfer augmentation, an experimental study of the tube-side boiling heat transfer of refrigerant HFC-134a has been conducted in a single-pass, counter-flow heat exchanger. The electrode position was arranged concentric to the tube. Experiments are conducted for inlet qualities of 0% to 60%, mass fluxes from 100 kg/m2s to 500 kg/m2s, heat fluxes of 10 kW/m2 and 20 kW/m2, and applied voltage from 0 kV to 8 kV DC. The threshold of EHD effects were analysed by a proposed dimensional analysis which predicts that the EHD forces become significant when the Dielectric Electric Rayleigh number is of the same order of magnitude as the square of the liquid Reynolds number, Eℓε ≈ Re ℓ 2 . This criterion is supported by experimental evidence. Flow visualization experiments have shown that, when the proposed dimensionless criterion is satisfied, EHD body forces may have a strong influence on the liquid-phase and consequently the flow pattern within the channel. The various flow configurations clearly affect heat transfer and pressure loss and need to be considered in any attempt to identify the effects of an applied electric field.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Santosh Krishnamurthy ◽  
Yoav Peles

Flow boiling of 1-methoxyheptafluoropropane (HFE 7000) in 222 μm hydraulic diameter channels containing a single row of 24 inline 100 μm pin fins was studied for mass fluxes from 350 kg/m2 s to 827 kg/m2 s and wall heat fluxes from 10 W/cm2 to 110 W/cm2. Flow visualization revealed the existence of isolated bubbles, bubbles interacting, multiple flow, and annular flow. The observed flow patterns were mapped as a function of the boiling number and the normalized axial distance. The local heat transfer coefficient during subcooled boiling was measured and found to be considerably higher than the corresponding single-phase flow. Furthermore, a thermal performance evaluation comparison with a plain microchannel revealed that the presence of pin fins considerably enhanced the heat transfer coefficient.


2010 ◽  
Vol 29-32 ◽  
pp. 132-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Jiang Lai ◽  
Rui Li ◽  
Yong Dai ◽  
Su Yi Huang

Flower baffle heat exchanger’s structure and design idea is introduced. Flower baffle heat exchanger has unique support structure. It can both enhance the efficiency of the heat transfer and reduce the pressure drop. Through the experimental study, under the same shell side flow, the heat transfer coefficient K which the distance between two flower baffles is 134mm is higher 3%~9% than the one of which the distances between two flower baffles are 163mm,123mm. The heat transfer coefficient K which the distance between two flower baffles is 147mm is close to the one of which the distances between two flower baffles is 134mm. The shell volume flow V is higher, the incremental quantity of heat transfer coefficient K is more. The integrated performance K/Δp of flower baffle heat exchanger which the distance between two flower baffles is 134mm is higher 3%~9% than the one of which the distances between two flower baffles are 163mm,123mm. Therefore, the best distance between two flower baffles exists between 134mm~147mm this experiment.


Author(s):  
Ki Wook Jung ◽  
Hyoungsoon Lee ◽  
Chirag Kharangate ◽  
Feng Zhou ◽  
Mehdi Asheghi ◽  
...  

Abstract High performance and economically viable thermal cooling solutions must be developed to reduce weight and volume, allowing for a wide-spread utilization of hybrid electric vehicles. The traditional embedded microchannel cooling heat sinks suffer from high pressure drop due to small channel dimensions and long flow paths in 2D-plane. Utilizing direct “embedded cooling” strategy in combination with top access 3D-manifold strategy reduces the pressure drop by nearly an order of magnitude. In addition, it provides more temperature uniformity across large area chips and it is less prone to flow instability in two-phase boiling heat transfer. Here, we present the experimental results for single-phase thermofluidic performance of an embedded silicon microchannel cold-plate bonded to a 3D manifold for heat fluxes up to 300 W/cm2 using single-phase R-245fa. The heat exchanger consists of a 52 mm2 heated area with 25 parallel 75 × 150 μm2 microchannels, where the fluid is distributed by a 3D-manifold with 4 micro-conduits of 700 × 250 μm2. Heat is applied to the silicon heat sink using electrical Joule-heating in a metal serpentine bridge and the heated surface temperature is monitored in real-time by Infra-red (IR) camera and electrical resistance thermometry. The experimental results for maximum and average temperatures of the chip, pressure drop, thermal resistance, average heat transfer coefficient for flow rates of 0.1, 0.2. 0.3 and 0.37 lit/min and heat fluxes from 25 to 300 W/cm2 are reported. The proposed Embedded Microchannels-3D Manifold Cooler, or EMMC, device is capable of removing 300 W/cm2 at maximum temperature 80 °C with pressure drop of less than 30 kPa, where the flow rate, inlet temperature and pressures are 0.37 lit/min, 25 °C and 350 kPa, respectively. The experimental uncertainties of the test results are estimated, and the uncertainties are the highest for heat fluxes < 50 W/cm2 due to difficulty in precisely measuring the fluid temperature at the inlet and outlet of the micro-cooler.


Author(s):  
Junye Li ◽  
Kan Zhou ◽  
Wei Li

Abstract An experimental investigation of subcooled flow boiling in a large width-to-height-ratio, one-sided heating rectangular mini-gap channel was conducted with deionized water as the working fluid. The super-hydrophobicity micro-porous structured copper surface was utilized in the experiments. High speed flow visualization was conducted to illustrate the effects of heat flux and mass rate on the heat transfer coefficient and flow pattern on the surfaces. The mass fluxes were in the range of 200–500 kg/m2s, the wall heat fluxes were spanned from 40–400 kW/m2. With increments of imposed heat flux, the slopes of boiling curves for superhydrophobic micro-porous copper surfaces increased rapidly, indicating the Onset of Nucleate Boiling. Heat transfer characteristics were discussed with variation of heat fluxes and mass fluxes, the trends of which were analyzed with the aid of high speed flow visualization.


Author(s):  
Pega Hrnjak ◽  
Seongho Kim

Flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of CO2 with and without oil were investigated experimentally in horizontal smooth and enhanced tubes with an inner diameter of 11.2 mm. The visualization of flow pattern provides a detailed attributes of the nucleate and the convective boiling heat transfer. In order to investigate the effect of the miscible oil on the heat transfer of CO2, POE (polyolester) RENSIO C85E oil is added to give an oil circulation rate (OCR) between 0.5% and 2%. Results are compared with those of pure CO2. The experimental conditions include evaporation temperatures of −15 °C, mass fluxes from 40 to 200 kg/m2 s, heat fluxes from 0.5 to 10 kW/m2, and vapor qualities from 0.1 to 0.8. Oil generally deteriorates the heat transfer coefficient of pure CO2. The reduction in heat transfer coefficient is most apparent at low vapor qualities, 0.1 to 0.4, and at low mass fluxes, 100 and 200 kg/m2. It is caused by the suppression of nucleate boiling due to increased surface tension. At conditions where the convective boiling contribution is dominant, vapor qualities above 0.5, oil increases heat transfer coefficients. Through visualization, it is shown that the wetted area on the perimeter of inner tube is enhanced due to formation of foaming in the smooth tube. However, such enhancement of heat transfer due to forming is negligible in the enhanced tube, because the enhanced factor due to micro-finned structures is dominant.


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