Can the heat transfer coefficients for single-phase flow and for convective flow boiling be equivalent?

Abstract

During the past few decades, heat transfer during convective flow boiling inside pipes has been widely studied with the goal of unveiling the physics of the process. Different heat transfer mechanisms have been suggested based on different assumptions. This fact has resulted in a large number of models including different dimensionless numbers and in some cases up to a dozen of adjusted parameters. Here, we show that the convective flow boiling heat transfer coefficient is equivalent to the one for single-phase flow when the influence of the vapour velocity is taken into account.