Flow Boiling Heat Transfer, Pressure Drop and Dryout Characteristics of Low GWP Refrigerants in a Vertical Mini-Channel
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Flow boiling heat transfer, pressure drop and dryout characteristics of low GWP refrigerants in a vertical mini-channel Doctoral Thesis By Zahid Anwar Division of Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration Energy Technology Department Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden Doctoral Thesis in Energy Technology Stockholm, Sweden 2014 Trita REFR Report 14/03 ISSN 1102-0245 ISRN KTH/REFR/14/03-SE ISBN 978-91-7595-389-2 © Zahid Anwar 2014 ii Abstract Two-phase heat transfer in mini/micro-channels is capable of meeting the high cooling demands of modern high heat flux applications. The phase change process ensures better temperature uniformity and control for local hot spots. Furthermore, these compact channels could be helpful in reducing the required charge and material inventories. Environmental concerns—mainly ozone depletion and global warming—have instigated a search for new alternatives in refrigeration industry. While new compounds are being developed to address stringent legislative demands, natural alternatives are also coming into prominence. A limited number of investigators have reported on thermal performance of such alternatives. The current study is therefore focused on saturated flow boiling heat transfer, pressure drop and dryout characteristics for three low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants (R152a, R600a and R1234yf) in a vertical mini-channel. In this study experiments were carried out by uniformly heating a test section (stainless steel tube with 1.60 mm inside diameter and 245 mm heated length) at 27 and 32oC saturation temperature with 50-500 kg/m2s mass velocities. The effects of various parameters of interest (like heat flux, mass flux, system pressure, vapor quality, operating media) on flow boiling heat transfer, frictional pressure drop and dryout characteristics were recorded. R134a, which has been widely used in several applications, is utilized as a reference case for comparison of thermal performance in this study. Experimental results for saturated boiling heat transfer showed strong influence of heat flux and system pressure with insignificant contributions from mass flux and vapor quality. Two phase frictional pressure drop increased with mass flux, vapor quality and with reduced operating pressure. The dryout heat flux remained unaffected with variation in saturation temperature, critical vapor quality in most cases was about 85%. The experimental results (boiling heat transfer, two-phase pressure drop and dryout heat flux) were compared with well-known macro and micro-scale correlations from the literature. Keywords: Mini/micro-channels, R1234yf, R152a, R600a, R134a, Boiling heat transfer, Pressure drop, Dryout, Correlation iii iv Acknowledgement First and foremost, deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Björn Palm, for providing me with the opportunity to work under his kind supervision. I am grateful for his continuous guidance and support in all academic and related matters. I am also thankful to my co-supervisor, Associate Prof. Rahmatollah Khodabandeh, for his guidance, support and motivation throughout the entire project. I am thankful to all my colleagues (ETT-Family) with whom I shared my time of joy and stress. Special thanks goes to Samer Sawalha, Hatef Madani, Aleh Kliatsko, Monika Ignatowicz, Oxana Samoteeva, Erik Björk, Bhezad Monfared, Ehsan Bitaraf Haghighi, Jianyoung Chen, Qingming Liu, Pavel Makhnatch, Omar Shafqat, Mazyar Karampour , Morteza Ghanbarpour and Jose Acuna for your valuable company and support. Special thanks to our lab manager, Peter Hill, and technical support staff, Benny Sjöberg and Kalr-Åke Lundin, for their help whenever needed. I am thankful to my Pakistani friends M. Hamid Munir, Mian M. Masoud, Nawaz Ahmed Virk, Afzal Frooqi and Shahid Hussain Siyal for their nice friendship, support and motivation all the time. I really enjoyed your friendship. Financial support was received from University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan and from Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Sweden and is highly acknowledged. Special thanks to my family members in Pakistan for their encouragement, support and understanding throughout the completion of this thesis. Finally my gratitude to my fiancée Maria Ashraf for her love, care, patience and support. Zahid Anwar Stockholm, November 2014 vi Publications Journal Articles Published 1. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, 2014, Flow boiling heat transfer and dryout characteristics of R152a in a vertical mini-channel, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, Vol. 53, 207-217. Accepted 1. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, Flow boiling heat transfer and dryout characteristics of R600a in a vertical mini-channel, Accepted for Vol. 36 of Journal of Heat Transfer Engineering. Under Review Process 1. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, Flow boiling heat transfer, pressure drop and dryout characteristics of R1234yf in a vertical mini-channel. Submitted to the Journal of Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science. 2. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, Dryout characteristics of natural and synthetic refrigerants in vertical mini-channels. Submitted to the Journal of Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science. Peer Reviewed Conferences 1. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, 2013, Dryout characteristics of R600a in a vertical mini- channel, Eurotherm Seminar No. 96, September 17-18, Brussels, Belgium. 2. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, 2013, Flow boiling of R600a in a uniformly heated vertical mini-channel, 13TH UK Heat Transfer Conference, September 2-3, London, UK. 3. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, 2013, Dryout characteristics of R600a in a uniformly heated vertical mini-channel, 13TH UK Heat Transfer Conference, September 2-3, London, UK. 4. Z. Anwar, B. Palm, R. Khodabandeh, Flow Boiling of R1234yf in a uniform smooth vertical mini- channel, 4TH IIR Conference on Thermophysical properties and Transfer processes of Refrigerants, Delft, Netherland. Other Publications 1. Z. Anwar, 2013, Evaporative heat transfer with R134a in a vertical mini-channel, Pakistan Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vol. 13, 101-109. 2. Z. Anwar, 2013, Dryout characteristics of R134a in a vertical mini-channel, International Journal of Thermal Technologies, Vol. 3, 36-42. 3. E. B. Haghighi, Z. Anwar, I. Lumbreras, S. A. Mirmohammadi, M. R. Behi, R. Khodabandeh, B. Palm, 2012, Screening single phase laminar convective heat transfer with nanofluids in a micro-tube, 6TH European Thermal Science Conference (Eurotherm 2012). 4. E. B. Haghighi, M. Saleemi, N. Nikham, Z. Anwar, I. Lumbreras, M. Behi, S. A. Mirmohammadi, H. Poth, R. Khodabandeh, M. S. Toprak, M. Muhammad, B. Palm, 2013, Cooling performance of Nanofluids in a small diameter tube, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, Vol. 49, 114-122. viii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................. III ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................................................ V PUBLICATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................... VII TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................. IX CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ........................................................................................... 11 1.1 MACRO TO MICRO-SCALE TRANSITION CRITERIA ............................................................................................................ 12 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO BOILING ...................................................................................................................................... 13 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THIS STUDY ....................................................................................................................................... 16 1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ........................................................................................................................................ 16 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................... 17 2.1 FLOW BOILING HEAT TRANSFER ................................................................................................................................. 17 2.2 FRICTIONAL PRESSURE DROP ..................................................................................................................................... 25 2.3 DRYOUT/CRITICAL HEAT FLUX ................................................................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 3. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH ......................................................................................................... 35 3.1 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP .............................................................................................................................................. 35 3.1.1 Test Section................................................................................................................................................. 35 3.2 DATA ACQUISITION ................................................................................................................................................. 38 3.3 MEASUREMENT