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A New Saturated Two-Phase Flow Boiling Correlation Based on Propane (R290) Data

  • Research Article-Mechanical Engineering
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Abstract

There are plenty of literature research studies investigating two-phase heat transfer characteristics of propane under varying operational conditions. Based on the collected data retrieved from the experimental measurements, several flow boiling heat transfer correlations have been proposed up to now. However, the prediction accuracy of the proposed correlations for propane refrigerant is still in question as most of the correlation is developed for their measurements or derived for a limited range of operational conditions. To conquer this drawback, this study proposes a new flow boiling heat transfer model for smooth tubes based on a propane experimental database compiled of 2179 points obtained from different eighteen laboratories around the world. Operational conditions of the database cover mass fluxes between 50 and 600 kg/m2s, saturation temperatures between − 35.0 and 43.0 °C, heat fluxes between 2.5 and 227.0 kW/m2, hydraulic diameters between 0.3 and 7.7 mm, and thermodynamic qualities 0.01 to 0.99. Estimations performed by the new flow boiling model have been compared to those obtained by the literature correlations, and comparative results indicate that the proposed model surpasses the existing flow boiling in terms of prediction accuracy with a mean absolute error of 19.1% and mean relative error of 1.7%.

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Abbreviations

Bd:

Bond number

Bo:

Boiling number, \({\text{Bo}}\, = \,\frac{Q}{{G \cdot h_{{{\text{fg}}}} }}\)

C :

Chisholm parameter

C n :

Correlation constant

Co:

Convection number, \({\text{Co}}\, = \,\left( {\frac{1 - x}{x}} \right)^{0.8} \left( {\frac{{\rho_{{\text{v}}} }}{{\rho_{{\text{l}}} }}} \right)^{0.5}\)

Conf:

Confinement number, \({\text{Conf}}\, = \,\frac{{\sqrt {\left( {\frac{\sigma }{{g\left( {\rho_{{\text{l}}} - \rho_{{\text{v}}} } \right)}}} \right)} }}{{D_{{\text{h}}} }}\)

Cp:

Specific heat capacity (kJ/kg K)

D h :

Hydraulic tube diameter (m)

f :

Friction factor

F :

Two phase multiplier

Fr:

Froude number, \({\text{Fr}}\, = \,\frac{{G^{2} }}{{g \cdot D_{{\text{h}}} \cdot \rho^{2} }}\)

F f :

Fluid specific constant for Kandlikar correlation

g :

Gravitational acceleration constant (m/s2)

G :

Mass flux (kg/m2s)

h :

Heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K)

h fg :

Latent heat of vaporization (kJ/kg)

k :

Thermal conductivity (W/mK)

M :

Molar mass (kg/kmol)

MAE:

Mean absolute error

MRE:

Mean relative error

N :

Number of experimental data

p r :

Reduced pressure, \(p_{{\text{r}}} = \frac{{p_{{{\text{sat}}}} }}{{p_{{{\text{crit}}}} }}\)

Pr:

Prandtl number, \(\Pr = \frac{{\mu \cdot C_{{\text{p}}} }}{k}\)

Q,q :

Heat flux (W/m2)

Rel :

Liquid Reynolds number, \({\text{Re}}_{{\text{l}}} = \frac{{G\left( {1 - x} \right)D_{{\text{h}}} }}{{\mu_{{\text{l}}} }}\)

Relo :

Liquid-only Reynolds number, \({\text{Re}}_{{{\text{lo}}}} = \frac{{G \cdot D_{{\text{h}}} }}{{\mu_{{\text{l}}} }}\)

S :

Suppression factor

T :

Temperature (°C/K)

x :

Vapor quality

X tt :

Lockhart–Martinelli parameter, \(X_{{{\text{tt}}}} = \left( {\frac{1 - x}{x}} \right)^{0.9} \left( {\frac{{\rho_{{\text{v}}} }}{{\rho_{{\text{l}}} }}} \right)^{0.5} \left( {\frac{{\mu_{{\text{l}}} }}{{\mu_{{\text{v}}} }}} \right)^{0.1}\)

We:

Weber number, \({\text{We}} = \frac{{G^{2} \cdot g}}{\rho \cdot \sigma }\)

ε :

Surface roughness (μm)

μ :

Dynamic viscosity (Pa s)

ρ :

Density (kg/m3)

σ :

Surface tension (Pa/m

calc:

Calculated

cb:

Convective boiling

crit:

Critical

exp:

Experimental

g, V:

Gas, vapor

l:

Liquid

lo:

Liquid only

nb:

Nucleate boiling

pred:

Predicted

sat:

Saturated

sp:

Single phase

tp:

Two-phase

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial Engineering Department, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Izmir Bakircay University, 35667, Menemen, Izmir, Turkey

    Oguz Emrah Turgut

  2. Mechanical Engineering Department, Ege University, 35040, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey

    Mustafa Turhan Coban

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  1. Oguz Emrah Turgut
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Turgut, O.E., Coban, M.T. A New Saturated Two-Phase Flow Boiling Correlation Based on Propane (R290) Data. Arab J Sci Eng 46, 7851–7874 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-021-05593-9

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