Experimental Investigation of Flow Boiling Pressure Drop of R134A in a Microscale Horizontal Smooth Tube

摘要

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/m~2 s to 600 kg/m~2 s, heat flux ranging from 10 kW/m~2 to 5.5 kW/m~2, saturation temperatures of 31℃, 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.