A Modified Correlation for Flow Boiling Heat Transfer in Plate Heat Exchangers

Corrugated plate heat exchangers are increasingly used in two-phase flow applications for their flexible compact size and efficient heat transfer performance. This paper presents a brief review of recent studies on the flow boiling in plate heat exchangers and creates a database containing 533 data points from previous experimental studies. The collected database covers seven working fluids, a wide range of vapor quality (both mean and local) 0.01–0.94, heat flux 0.5–46 kW m−2, mass flux 5.5–137 kg m−2 s−1, chevron angle 30–70 deg, and hydraulic diameter 1.7–4.0 mm. Based on the database a brief comparison between several previous correlations are discussed. A new prediction method for flow boiling heat transfer coefficient is developed by multiple regression analysis and modifying an existing correlation. A criterion proposed by Li and Wu about the transition from micro- to macroscale was introduced with a combined dimensionless number Bd·Rel0.5 which attempts to comprehensively consider four types of forces during flow boiling. It was observed that the modified correlation shows a better agreement and predicts 74.3% and 94.9% of total data points within ±30% and ±50% error bands, respectively.