Flow boiling of liquid nitrogen in micro-tubes: Part II – Heat transfer characteristics and critical heat flux

Abstract This paper is the second portion of a two-part study concerning the flow boiling of liquid nitrogen in the micro-tubes with the diameters of 0.531, 0.834, 1.042 and 1.931 mm. The contents include the heat transfer characteristics and critical heat flux (CHF). The local wall temperatures are measured, from which the local heat transfer coefficients are determined. The influences of heat flux, mass flux, pressure and tube diameter on the flow boiling heat transfer coefficients are investigated systematically. Two regions with different heat transfer mechanism can be classified: the nucleate boiling dominated region for low mass quality and the convection evaporation dominated region for high mass quality. For none of the existed correlations can predict the experimental data, a new correlation expressed by Co, Bo, We, Kp and X is proposed. The new correlation yields good fitting for 455 experimental data of 0.531, 0.834 and 1.042 mm micro-tubes with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 13.7%. For 1.931 mm tube, the flow boiling heat transfer characteristics are similar to those of macro-channels, and the heat transfer coefficient can be estimated by Chen correlation. Critical heat flux (CHF) is also measured for the four tubes. Both the CHF and the critical mass quality (CMQ) are higher than those for conventional channels. According to the relationship that CMQ decreases with the mass flux, the mechanism of CHF in micro-tubes is postulated to be the dryout or tear of the thin liquid film near the inner wall. It is found that CHF increases gradually with the decrease of tube diameter.

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