On Various Forms of the Heat and Mass Transfer Analogy: Discussion and Application to Condensation Experiments

Abstract The paper is focused on some of the different forms of the analogy between heat and mass transfer, as they appear in available textbooks and literature on condensation and evaporation. The motivation for the work is the need to clearly point out the assumptions at the basis of each one of them and to quantify the related differences in the application to real experimental data. In fact, the analogy is very often cast in apparently very different forms, whose relation to each other must be carefully understood when a selection among them is performed for a given application. Basing on previous experience in the analysis of heat and mass transfer for passive cooling in light water nuclear reactors, the present work briefly summarises the theoretical bases of the selected forms of the analogy, comparing the related relationships. Then, an experimental activity related to condensation on a flat plate in the presence of noncondensable gases, aimed at providing data for nuclear reactor containment analysis, is presented and the obtained results are processed by the different forms of the analogy to assess the related quantitative differences, thus providing a clearer perspective about the results of their use in engineering applications.

[1]  Nicola Forgione,et al.  Experimental Investigation and Modelling of Film Evaporation in the Presence of Countercurrent Air Flow , 2000 .

[2]  Allan P. Colburn,et al.  A method of correlating forced convection heat-transfer data and a comparison with fluid friction☆☆☆ , 1964 .

[3]  W. Ambrosini,et al.  Experiments and CFD Analyses on Condensation Heat Transfer in a Square Cross Section Channel , 2005 .

[4]  Geoffrey F. Hewitt,et al.  Two-Phase Flow and Heat Transfer , 2019, Fundamentals of Multiphase Heat Transfer and Flow.

[5]  J. Lienhard.  A heat transfer textbook , 1981 .

[6]  D. Spalding.  A standard formulation of the steady convective mass transfer problem , 1960 .

[7]  Luciano Cinotti,et al.  Modelling Condensation on Finned Tube Heat Exchangers in the Presence of Noncondensable Gases , 1999 .

[8]  Luis E. Herranz,et al.  A diffusion layer model for steam condensation within the AP600 containment , 1998 .

[9]  F. Kreith,et al.  Principles of heat transfer , 1962 .

[10]  Frank P. Incropera,et al.  Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer , 1981 .

[11]  Osborne Reynolds,et al.  On the extent and action of the heating surface of steam boilers , 1961 .

[12]  G. Yadigaroglu,et al.  Scaling of Containment Experiments , 2003 .

[13]  L. C. Chow,et al.  Evaporation of water into a laminar stream of air and superheated steam , 1983 .

[14]  William Easson,et al.  3rd International Symposium on Two-Phase Flow Modelling and Experimentation , 2004 .

[15]  D. Mazzini,et al.  Computational Study of Evaporative Film Cooling in a Vertical Rectangular Channel , 2002 .

[16]  A. Colburn,et al.  Design of Cooler Condensers for Mixtures of Vapors with Noncondensing Gases , 1934 .

[17]  J. Thome,et al.  Convective Boiling and Condensation , 1972 .

[18]  P. Peterson.  Theoretical basis for the uchida correlation for condensation in reactor containments , 1996 .

[19]  Per F. Peterson,et al.  Diffusion Layer Theory for Turbulent Vapor Condensation With Noncondensable Gases , 1993 .