A New Flow Pattern Based General Correlation for Heat Transfer During Condensation in Horizontal Tubes

Abstract

A flow pattern based general correlation for heat transfer during condensation inside horizontal plain tubes is presented. It is compared to a data base that contains 89 data sets from 39 studies. It includes 25 fluids (water, carbon dioxide, DME, halocarbon refrigerants, and hydrocarbon refrigerants), tube diameters from 2 to 49 mm, reduced pressures from 0.0023 to 0.95, flow rates from 13 to 820 kg/m 2 s, and all liquid Reynolds numbers from 1012 to 84827. The 1568 data points are predicted with a mean absolute deviation of 16.7 %, with flow patterns determined with well-known flow pattern maps. The same data base is also compared to the author’s published correlation which is purely empirical as well as several other general correlations. The present correlation performs significantly better than other correlations though the author’s published correlation has slightly lower mean deviation. The results of data analyses are discussed and presented in graphical and tabular forms.