An experimental approach to heat loss measurement of horizontal two-phase flow boiling in low-pressure low-flow (LPLF) conditions

Abstract

A crucial parameter remarkably influencing the reliability and accuracy of vapor quality measurements in flow boiling experiments is the measurement of heat loss. The latent heat loss estimation in two-phase flow boiling sounds more demanding than that of sensible heat loss in single-phase flow experiments. To accurately investigate the impact of vapor quality on the heat transfer coefficient of flow boiling, accurate estimates of heat loss and subsequent calibration of heat supplies are of a great significance. It is widely common that the single-phase flow tests are performed to estimate a fixed heat loss percentage and calibrate heat supplies for further measurements of vapor quality and heat transfer coefficient of flow boiling experiments. In the present work, an empirical methodology is first proposed to measure heat losses and calibrate latent heat supplies directly from flow boiling process. The proposed methodology is then compared and verified with the commonly applied methodology which uses single-phase flow experiments. The proposed methodology exhibited higher accuracy than the single-phase-based methodology to estimate heat losses and measure vapor quality within two-phase flow boiling under low-pressure low-flow (LPLF) operating conditions.