Lorenzo Cremaschi, Fellow ASHRAE, is an associate professor. Andrea A.M. Bigi and Pratik Deokar, members ASHRAE, are PhD students. Thiam Wong, member ASHRAE, is Master student. In vapor compression cycles, a small portion of the oil circulates with the refrigerant throughout the system components and penalizes the heat transfer as well as increases the pressure losses. Nanolubricants -lubricants with dispersed nanoparticles -are expected to provide enhancements in heat transfer. While solubility and miscibility of refrigerants in POE lubricant are well-established knowledge, there is a lack of information regarding if and how nanoparticles dispersed in the lubricant affect these two properties. This paper presents experimental data of solubility and miscibility of three types of Al 2 O 3 nanolubricants with refrigerant R410A. The nanoparticles were dispersed in POE lubricant by using three different surfactants. The data identified optimum combinations to achieve stable and uniform Downloaded by [Fudan University] at 10:11 16 May 2015 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 dispersions. The associated viscosity was also measured. The viscosity was about 2.6 higher at 5°C. The nanolubricants had also lower refrigerant R410A solubility with respect to POE oil and surfactants affected slightly the viscosity and solubility properties of the nanolubricants. Finally this paper presents data of pressure drop for two-phase flow boiling in a horizontal tube with internally enhanced heat transfer surfaces and it discusses the effect of the nanoparticles on the pressure drop of the mixture. Nanolubricant did not increase the two-phase pressure drop with respect to POE lubricant and at low and medium mass flux the pressure drop of nanolubricant were lower than the corresponding two phase pressure drop of refrigerant R410A and POE oil mixture. Two correlations from the literature predicted well the pressure drop data of the refrigerant R410A and POE oil mixture of the present work while their accuracy for the nanolubricant mixture was slightly over ±20%.
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