Numerical Analysis of Condensation of R134a in a Single Microchannel

Author(s):  
Harish Ganapathy ◽  
Amir Shooshtari ◽  
Kyosung Choo ◽  
Serguei Dessiatoun ◽  
Mohamed Alshehhi ◽  
...  

The present work proposes a numerical, transient modeling approach for the simulation of condensation heat transfer in a single microchannel. The model was based on the volume of fluid approach, which governed the hydrodynamics of the two-phase flow. User-defined routines were implemented in order to simulate the effects of condensation, which included mass transfer at the liquid-vapor interface and the associated release of latent heat. A channel having hydraulic diameter of 100 micrometer was modeled using a two-dimensional computational domain. The working fluid was R134a and the vapor mass fluxes at the channel inlet ranged from 245 to 615 kg/m2s. The channel wall was maintained at a constant heat flux, ranging between 200 to 800 kW/m2. The predictive accuracy of the numerical model was assessed by comparing the two-phase frictional pressure drop and Nusselt number with the available empirical correlations in the literature. A reasonably good agreement was obtained for both parameters with mean absolute errors as low as ±7.5% for pressure drop and ±15.6% for Nusselt number. Further, a qualitative comparison of various flow patterns against experimental visualization data was performed. The predicted flow patterns were classified based on the relative dominance of surface tension and inertia forces, and the results were in close agreement with visualization data. On the whole, the newly developed approach was found to have a high predictive accuracy with respect to the simulation of condensation phenomena in microscale domains and was concluded to be a useful tool in support of the design and optimization of advanced microchannel-based heat exchangers.

Author(s):  
Yuqing Xue ◽  
Huixiong Li ◽  
Tianyou Sheng ◽  
Changjiang Liao

A large amount of air need be transported into the reservoir in the deep stratum to supply oxygen to some microbes in Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR). Air-water two-phase flows downward along vertical pipeline during the air transportation. Base on the experiment data described in this paper, the characteristics of air-water two phase flow patterns were investigated. The flow pattern map of air-water two phase flows in the pipe with inner diameter of 65 mm was drawn, criterions of flow pattern transition were discussed, and the dynamic signals of the pressure and the differential pressure of the two phase flow were recorded to characterize the three basic flow regimes indirectly. The frictional pressure drop of downward flow in vertical pipe must not be disregarded contrast with upward two phase flow in the vertical pipe because the buoyancy must be overcame when the gas flows downward along pipe, and there would be a maximum value of frictional when the flow pattern translated from slug flow to churn flow.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (0) ◽  
pp. J0540102
Author(s):  
Hideo IDE ◽  
Takayuki UMENO ◽  
Eiji KINOSHITA ◽  
Takeshi OhTAKA ◽  
Ryo KUROSHIMA

Author(s):  
Hiroyasu Ohtake ◽  
Hideyasu Ohtaki ◽  
Yasuo Koizumi

The frictional pressure drops and two-phase flow patterns of gas-liquid two-phase flow in mini-micro pipes and at vena contract and expansion were investigated experimentally. Test liquid was water; test gas was argon. The diameter of the test mini-pipe was 0.5, 0.25 and 0.12 mm, respectively. The pressure drop data and the flow pattern were collected over 2.1 < Ug < 92.5 m/s for the superficial gas velocity and 0.03 < Ul < 10 m/s for the superficial liquid velocity. The experimental results show that the flow patterns were slug, churn, ring and annular flows; pure bubbly flow pattern was not observed in a range of the present experimental conditions. The two-phase friction multiplier data for D > 0.5 mm showed to be in good agreement with the conventional correlations. On the other hand, the two-phase friction multiplier data for D < 0.25 mm differed from the calculated values by the conventional correlations. Then, thickness of liquid film around a gas plug and size of gas core were estimated and the effect of frictional pressure drop on channel size was discussed through Knudsen Number of gas and instability on liquid-gas interface. The coefficients of sudden enlargement and sudden contraction in mini-pipes for the gas-water two-phase flow were modified from the present experimental results.


Author(s):  
M. Hamayun Maqbool ◽  
Bjo¨rn Palm ◽  
R. Khodabandeh ◽  
Rashid Ali

Experiments have been performed to investigate two-phase pressure drop in a circular vertical mini-channel made of stainless steel (AISI 316) with internal diameter of 1.70 mm and a uniformly heated length of 245 mm using ammonia as working fluid. The experiments are conducted for heat flux range of 15 to 350 kW/m2 and mass flux range of 100 to 500 kg/m2s. A uniform heat flux is applied to the test section by DC power supply. Two phase frictional pressure drop variation with mass flux, vapour quality and heat flux was determined. The experimental results are compared to predictive methods available in literature for frictional pressure drop. The Homogeneous model and the correlation of Mu¨ller Steinhagen et al. [14] are in good agreement with our experimental data with MAD of 27% and 26% respectively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ghosh ◽  
G. Das ◽  
P. K. Das

In the present paper, the pressure drop characteristics and flow patterns during downward vertical flow of lube oil-water as well as kerosene-water through a circular glass conduit have been studied. Core-annular flow has been observed to be the dominant flow pattern and it gives rise to slug flow with increase of water and/or decrease of oil velocity. However, there are subtle differences in the flow distribution observed for high viscosity and low viscosity oils. The two-phase frictional pressure drop for separated flow patterns of both the liquid pairs is predicted using two-fluid model. Since the model predictions have a large mismatch with experimental data, an empirical correlation is also proposed for improved predictions. The homogeneous and drift flux models are used for slug and dispersed flow patterns.


Author(s):  
Cristiano Bigonha Tibiriçá ◽  
Jaqueline Diniz da Silva ◽  
Gherhardt Ribatski

This paper presents new experimental flow boiling pressure drop results in a microscale tube. The experimental data were obtained under diabatic conditions in a horizontal smooth tube with an internal diameter of 2.32 mm. Experiments were performed with R134a as working fluid, mass velocities ranging from 100 kg/m2 s to 600 kg/m2 s, heat flux ranging from 10 kW/m2 to 55 kW/m2, saturation temperatures of 31°C, and exit vapor qualities from 0.20 to 0.99. Flow pattern characterization was also performed from images obtained by high-speed filming. Pressure drop gradients up to 48 kPa/m were measured. These data were carefully analyzed and compared against 13 two-phase frictional pressure drop prediction methods, including both macro- and microscale methods. Comparisons against these methods based on the data segregated according to flow patterns were also performed. Overall, the method by Cioncolini et al. (2009, “Unified Macro-to-Microscale Method to Predict Two-Phase Frictional Pressure Drops of Annular Flows,” Int. J. Multiphase Flow, 35, pp. 1138–1148) provided quite accurate predictions of the present database.


Author(s):  
Santosh Krishnamurthy ◽  
Yoav Peles

Flow patterns, void fraction and pressure drop in adiabatic nitrogen-water two phase flows across a bank of micro pin fin were experimentally investigated for Reynolds number ranging from 5 to 50. Staggered cylindrical shaped micro pin fins with diameter and height of 100 μm were micro-fabricated into 1 cm long, 1.8 mm microchannel. Flow patterns were determined by flow visualization and classified as bubbly-slug flow, gas-slug flow, bridged flow and annular flow. The applicability of conventional scale models to predict two-phase frictional pressure drop was also assessed. The two-phase frictional multiplier was found to be a strong function of mass flux and flow patterns unlike the previous results observed in the microchannel studies. It was observed that models from conventional scale systems did not adequately predict the two-phase frictional multiplier at micro-scale and thus, a modified model accounting for mass flux and flow patterns have been developed in this work.


Author(s):  
Cristiano Bigonha Tibiric¸a´ ◽  
Gherhardt Ribatski

This paper presents new experimental flow boiling pressure drop results in a microscale tube. The experimental data were obtained under diabatic conditions in a horizontal smooth tube with internal diameter of 2.3 mm. Experiments were performed with R134a as working fluid, mass velocities ranging from 100 to 600 kg/m2s, heat flux ranging from 10 to 55 kW/m2, saturation temperatures of 31 °C, and exit vapor qualities from 0.20 to 0.99. Flow pattern characterization was also performed from images obtained by high-speed filming. Pressure drops up to 48 kPa/m were measured. These data were carefully analyzed and compared against 13 two-phase frictional pressure drop prediction methods, including both macro- and micro-scale methods. Comparisons against these methods based on the data segregated according to flow patterns were also performed. Overall, the method by Cioncolini et al. [1] provided quite accurate predictions of the present database.


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