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Flow Patterns and Heat Transfer for Flow Boiling in Small to Micro Diameter Tubes

An overview of the recent developments in the study of flow patterns and boiling heat transfer in small to micro diameter tubes is presented. The latest results of a long-term study of flow boiling of R134a in five vertical stainless-steel tubes of internal diameter 4.26, 2.88, 2.01, 1.1, and 0.52 mm are then discussed. During these experiments, the mass flux was varied from 100 to 700 kg/m2s and the heat flux from as low as 1.6 to 135 kW/m2. Five different pressures were studied, namely, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 bar. The flow regimes were observed at a glass section located directly at the exit of the heated test section. The range of diameters was chosen to investigate thresholds for macro, small, or micro tube characteristics. The heat transfer coefficients in tubes ranging from 4.26 mm down to 1.1 mm increased with heat flux and system pressure, but did not change with vapor quality for low quality values. At higher quality, the heat transfer coefficients decreased with increasing quality, indicating local transient dry-out, instead of increasing as expected in macro tubes. There was no significant difference between the characteristics and magnitude of the heat transfer coefficients in the 4.26 mm and 2.88 mm tubes but the coefficients in the 2.01 and 1.1 mm tubes were higher. Confined bubble flow was first observed in the 2.01 mm tube, which suggests that this size might be considered as a critical diameter to distinguish small from macro tubes. Further differences have now been observed in the 0.52 mm tube: A transitional wavy flow appeared over a significant range of quality/heat flux and dispersed flow was not observed. The heat transfer characteristics were also different from those in the larger tubes. The data fell into two groups that exhibited different influences of heat flux below and above a heat flux threshold. These differences, in both flow patterns and heat transfer, indicate a possible second change from small to micro behavior at diameters less than 1 mm for R134a.