Abstract Boiling of hydrocarbon mixtures inside plate fin heat exchangers (PFHEs) is most prevalent in many cryogenic processes of petrochemical plants. However, there is very little experimental data and a lack of prediction methods regarding boiling mixtures in PFHEs. This paper established an experimental setup that utilized a single-stage cryogenic cycle to measure the boiling heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) for hydrocarbon mixtures inside a perforated PFHE. The components of the mixtures include methane, ethylene, propane and isobutene. Twenty-seven sets of experiments were conducted under various operating conditions and 261 data points of the boiling HTC were obtained. The experimental conditions cover the mass fluxes of 3.69–19.38 kg m−2 s−1, pressures of 1.35–5.22 bar and vapor qualities of 0.05–0.77, which are representative of a wide range of actual industrial conditions. The corresponding heat fluxes only range from 55.7 to 3837.3 W m−2. The experimental boiling HTC varies from 21.4 to 1055.7 W m−2 K−1, and it is a strong function of the heat flux. Moreover, twelve existing correlations were assessed by using the present experimental data. The results show that the HTCs predicted by Chen type correlations were not consistent with the experimental results, and a new correlation developed from mini-channel correlations was recommended.

中文翻译：

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低温板翅式换热器内烃类混合物的向上流动沸腾传热系数的测量和预测

摘要 板翅式换热器 (PFHE) 内烃类混合物的沸腾在石油化工厂的许多低温过程中最为普遍。然而，关于 PFHE 中沸腾混合物的实验数据非常少，并且缺乏预测方法。本文建立了一个实验装置，该装置利用单级低温循环来测量穿孔 PFHE 内烃混合物的沸腾传热系数 (HTC)。混合物的组分包括甲烷、乙烯、丙烷和异丁烯。在各种操作条件下进行了 27 组实验，获得了沸腾 HTC 的 261 个数据点。实验条件涵盖 3.69–19.38 kg m-2 s-1 的质量通量，1.35–5.22 bar 的压力和 0.05–0.77 的蒸汽质量，它们代表了广泛的实际工业条件。相应的热通量范围仅为 55.7 至 3837.3 W m-2。实验沸腾 HTC 从 21.4 到 1055.7 W m-2 K-1 不等，它是热通量的强函数。此外，通过使用目前的实验数据评估了十二个现有的相关性。结果表明，Chen 型相关预测的 HTC 与实验结果不一致，建议使用微通道相关开发的新相关。