Phase change phenomena of a fluid flowing in a micro channel may be exploited to make the heat exchangers more compact and energy efficient. Compact heat exchangers offer several advantages such as light weight, low cost, energy efficiency, capability of removing high heat fluxes and charge reduction are a few to mention. Phase change phenomena in macro or conventional channels have been investigated since long but in case of micro channels, fewer studies of phase change have been conducted and underlying phenomena during two-phase flow in micro channels are not yet fully understood. It is clear from the literature that the two-phase flow models developed for conventional channels do not perform well when extrapolated to micro scale. In the current thesis, the experimental flow boiling results for micro channels are reported. Experiments were conducted in circular, stainless steel and quartz tubes in both horizontal and vertical orientations. The internal diameters of steel tubes tested were 1.70 mm, 1.224 mm and the diameter of quartz tube tested was 0.781 mm. The quartz tube was coated with a thin, electrically conductive, transparent layer of Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) making simultaneous heating and visualization possible. Test tubes were heated electrically using DC power supply. Two refrigerants R134a and R245fa were used as working fluids during the tests. Experiments were conducted at a wide variety of operating conditions. Flow visualization results obtained with quartz tube clearly showed the presence of confinement effects and consequently an early transition to annular flow for micro channels. Several flow pattern images were captured during flow boiling of R134a in quartz tube. Flow patterns recorded during the experiments were presented in the form of Reynolds number versus vapour quality and superficial liquid velocity versus superficial gas velocity plots. Experimental flow pattern maps so obtained were also compared with the other flow pattern maps available in the literature showing a poor agreement. Flow boiling heat transfer results for quartz and steel tubes indicate that the heat transfer coefficient increases with heat flux and system pressure but is independent on mass flux and vapour quality. Experimental flow boiling heat transfer coefficient results were compared with those obtained using different correlations from the literature. Heat transfer experiments with steel tubes were continued up to dryout condition and it was observed that dryout conditions always started close to the exit of the tube. The dryout heat flux increased with mass flux and decreased with exit vapour quality. The dryout data were compared with some well known CHF correlations available in the literature. Two-phase frictional pressure drop for the quartz tube was also obtained under different operating conditions. As expected, two-phase frictional pressure drop increased with mass flux and exit vapour quality. / QC 20101206
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-26796 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Ali, Rashid |
| Publisher | KTH, Tillämpad termodynamik och kylteknik, Stockholm : KTH |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Trita-REFR, 1102-0245 |
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