An experimental study of the flow of R-407C in an adiabatic helical capillary tube

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of coiling effect on the flow of R-407C in an adiabatic helical capillary tube. It has been observed that the coiling of capillary tube significantly influences the mass flow rate of R-407C through the adiabatic helical capillary tube. For the sake of comparison, the experiments have also been conducted for straight capillary tube and it has been observed that the mass flow rates in coiled capillary tube are 5–10 percent less than those in a straight one. The data obtained from the experiments have been analyzed and non-dimensional correlations for the prediction of mass flow rate of R-407C in straight and helical capillary tube have been developed. The proposed correlations predict our experimental data in an error band of ±10 percent. The predictions by developed correlations are also in good agreement with the data of other investigators.