The heat transfer characteristics of R134a flow boiling in a horizontal tube of an evaporator section for a refrigeration system of 310-W capacity are investigated experimentally and numerically. The experimental work was conducted using an evaporator tube test section of inner diameter 5.8[Formula: see text]mm and length 600[Formula: see text]mm. The ranges of investigated experimental data for heat flux, mass flux, saturation temperature and vapor quality were 13.8–36.6[Formula: see text]kW/m2, 52–105[Formula: see text]kg/m2[Formula: see text][Formula: see text][Formula: see text]s, [Formula: see text]–[Formula: see text]C and 0.2–1, respectively. Numerical analysis was based on two-phase flow turbulent model and this model was solved using the Ansys-18 code. The results showed that the effects of heat flux, mass velocity and saturation temperature on local heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were greater compared to that of the refrigerant vapor quality. The enhancements in local heat transfer coefficient due to the increase in heat flux, mass and saturation temperature were 38%, 57% and 64%, respectively, within the prescribed test conditions. The influence of mass flux variation on pressure drop along the evaporator channel was higher in the range of 27% compared to the heat flux effect. The average deviations between experimental and numerical results of heat transfer coefficient and pressure gradient were 14% and 17%, respectively, while the same between the experimental and predicted results were 16% and 33%, respectively.
This paper presents an experimental and theoretical analysis to investigate the two-phase flow boiling heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the refrigerant R-134a in the evaporator test section of the refrigeration system under different operating conditions. The test conditions considered are, for heat flux (13.7-36.6) kW/m2, mass flux (52-105) kg/m2.s, vapor quality (0.2-1) and saturation temperature (-15 to -3.7) ˚C. Experiments were carried out using a test rig for a 310W capacity refrigeration system, which is designed and constructed in the current work. Investigating of the experimental results has revealed that, the enhancement in local heat transfer coefficient for relatively higher heat flux 36.6 kW/m2 was about 38% compared to 13.7 kW/m2 at constant operating conditions. The enhancement in heat transfer coefficient was about 57% when the mass flux increased from 52 kg/m2.s to 105 kg/m2.s at constant test conditions. The enhancement in the heat transfer coefficient was about 64% when the saturation temperature increased from -8 to -3.7 at fixed refrigerant mass velocity and heat flux. The effect of mass velocity on pressure drop was relatively higher by about 27% than that for heat flux at specified test conditions. The comparison between the experimental and theoretical results has shown an acceptable agreement with an average deviation of 21%.
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