Investigation of Bubble Behavior in Subcooled Flow Boiling of Water in a Horizontal Annulus Using High-Speed Flow Visualization

Experiments have been carried out to study bubble behavior in subcooled flow boiling of water in a horizontal annulus at mass fluxes from 400 to 1200 kg/m2-s, heat fluxes from 0.1 to 1 MW/m2, and pressures varying from 1 to 4 bar using high-speed visualization methods. National Instruments Labview IMAQ Vision Builder automated image-processing software was used to analyze the images obtained by high-speed visualization to obtain bubble size and bubble density. The parametric effects of pressure, mass flux, and heat flux on bubble behavior have also been brought out. Experimental results were validated by comparing with the predicted bubble sizes by using the Zeitoun and Shoukri (1996) correlation and were found to be in good agreement. It was found that bubble behavior is significantly affected by mass flux of working fluid and applied heat flux, whereas pressure of working fluid influences the bubble formation process indirectly.