Performance Analysis and Test of a Small-Scale Natural Circulation Vertical Evaporator

In this study, an effort has been made to analyze the subcooled boiling heat transfer in a natural circulation vertical evaporator. To verify the analysis, a small-scale model was made and tested. The friction correlation by Ueda, void fraction and quality correlation by Saha and Zuber along with the superposition heat transfer model by Rohsenow yielded a satisfactory agreement with the model test data. The analysis was extended to simulate a 1 ton/day concentration system. Comparison with the test results of 1 ton/day prototype revealed that the data were overpredicted by 13%. The capacity of the prototype was 1.2 ton/day with COP of 5.77.