Two-phase flow model of a horizontal symmetrical impacting T-junction

Abstract

A symmetrical distribution of the two-phase refrigerant mixture before the evaporator is crucial to achieve optimal performance of heat pumps. In a previous study experiments on two-phase flow in a horizontal symmetric impacting T-junction were conducted in our lab. The measurements performed include both pressure drop and phase distribution data of refrigerants. This data is unique as almost all previous experiments in literature investigate air-water flows. With this data a mechanistic model was constructed which is capable of predicting the phase distributions and pressure drop depending on the flow regime and the fluid properties. The model is capable of predicting 90% of the data with a maximum mean deviation of 5%.