Refrigerant R134a vaporisation heat transfer and pressure drop inside a small brazed plate heat exchanger

Abstract This paper presents the experimental heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop measured during refrigerant R134a vaporisation inside a small brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE): the effects of heat flux, refrigerant mass flux, saturation temperature and outlet conditions are investigated. The BPHE tested consists of 10 plates, 72 mm in width and 310 mm in length, which present a macro-scale herringbone corrugation with an inclination angle of 65° and corrugation amplitude of 2 mm. The experimental results are reported in terms of refrigerant side heat transfer coefficients and frictional pressure drop. The heat transfer coefficients show great sensitivity both to heat flux and outlet conditions and weak sensitivity to saturation temperature. The frictional pressure drop shows a linear dependence on the kinetic energy per unit volume of the refrigerant flow. The experimental heat transfer coefficients are also compared with two well-known correlations for nucleate pool boiling and a correlation for frictional pressure drop is proposed.

[1]  Emad W. Jassim,et al.  Refrigerant pressure drop in chevron and bumpy style flat plate heat exchangers , 2006 .

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

[3]  Bing-Chwen Yang,et al.  Evaporation Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Refrigerant R134a in a Plate Heat Exchanger , 1997 .

[4]  S. C. Palmer,et al.  Evaporation and condensation heat transfer performance of flammable refrigerants in brazed plate heat exchanger , 2000 .

[5]  M. Cooper.  Heat Flow Rates in Saturated Nucleate Pool Boiling-A Wide-Ranging Examination Using Reduced Properties , 1984 .

[6]  Ephraim M Sparrow,et al.  The effect of superheating on condensation heat transfer in a forced convection boundary layer flow , 1969 .

[7]  Y. Hsieh,et al.  Evaporation Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Refrigerant R-410A Flow in a Vertical Plate Heat Exchanger , 2003 .

[8]  A. Bontemps,et al.  Condensation of Pure and Mixture of Hydrocarbons in a Compact Heat Exchanger: Experiments and Modelling , 2002 .

[9]  Condensation Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Brazed Plate Heat Exchangers Using Refrigerant R-134a , 2004 .

[10]  R. A. Mashelkar,et al.  Heat Transfer Equipment Design , 1988 .

[11]  Tsing-Fa Lin,et al.  Evaporation Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Refrigerant R-134a in a Plate Heat Exchanger , 1999 .

[12]  L. L. Tovazhnyanski,et al.  INTENSIFICATION OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER IN CHANNELS OF PLATE CONDENSERS , 1984 .

[13]  Steven J. Eckels,et al.  Dimensional analysis on the evaporation and condensation of refrigerant R-134a in minichannel plate heat exchangers , 2006 .

[14]  R. M. Manglik,et al.  Experimental Study of Turbulent Flow Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop in a Plate Heat Exchanger With Chevron Plates , 1999 .

[15]  W. Akers,et al.  CONDENSING HEAT TRANSFER WITHIN HORIZONTAL TUBES , 1955 .

[16]  Tsing-Fa Lin,et al.  Saturated flow boiling heat transfer and pressure drop of refrigerant R-410A in a vertical plate heat exchanger , 2002 .

[17]  E. Granryd,et al.  Propane heat pump with low refrigerant charge: design and laboratory tests , 2004 .

[18]  R. Webb.  Convective Condensation of Superheated Vapor , 1998 .

[19]  Joachim Claesson,et al.  Correction of logarithmic mean temperature difference in a compact brazed plate evaporator assuming heat flux governed flow boiling heat transfer coefficient , 2005 .

[20]  Björn Palm,et al.  Plate Heat Exchangers: Calculation Methods for Singleand Two-Phase Flow , 2006 .

[21]  J. Mitrovic,et al.  Effects of vapor superheat and condensate subcooling on laminar film condensation , 2000 .

[22]  Hitoshi Matsushima,et al.  Evaporation Performance of a Plate Heat Exchanger Embossed with Pyramid-Like Structures , 2002 .

[23]  T. Fujii.  Theory of Laminar Film Condensation , 1991 .

[24]  B. Thonon,et al.  Recent Research and Developments in Plate Heat Exchangers , 1995 .

[25]  K. S. Lee,et al.  Experiments on the characteristics of evaporation of R410A in brazed plate heat exchangers with different geometric configurations , 2003 .

[26]  M. Kedzierski.  Effect of Inclination on the Performance of a Compact Brazed Plate Condenser and Evaporator , 1995 .

[27]  S. J. Kline,et al.  Describing Uncertainties in Single-Sample Experiments , 1953 .

[28]  Boiling mechanism in a small compact brazed plate heat exchanger (CBE) determined by using thermochromic liquid crystals (TLC) , 1999 .

[29]  W. Nusselt.  Die Oberflachenkondensation des Wasserdampfes , 1916 .

[30]  Tsing-Fa Lin,et al.  Condensation heat transfer and pressure drop of refrigerant R-134a in a plate heat exchanger , 1999 .

[31]  Tsing-Fa Lin,et al.  Condensation heat transfer and pressure drop of refrigerant R-410A flow in a vertical plate heat exchanger , 2005 .

[32]  Ephraim M Sparrow,et al.  Condensation heat transfer in the presence of noncondensables, interfacial resistance, superheating, variable properties, and diffusion , 1966 .

[33]  Andrea Gasparella,et al.  Experimental heat transfer coefficients during refrigerant vaporisation and condensation inside herringbone-type plate heat exchangers with enhanced surfaces , 2004 .