Convective boiling heat transfer under microgravity and hypergravity conditions

Abstract

The present paper concerns an experimental investigation of the gravitational effects on subcooled and saturated flow boiling heat transfer in a vertical 3.75 mm diameter aluminum tube, using perfluorohexane as working fluid. Experimental results obtained during parabolic flights are compared with data gathered in the same test facility for normal gravity. Results were obtained for mass velocities of 133, 252, 377 and 428 kg/m2s, heat fluxes up to 106 kW/m2 and vapor qualities up to 0.28. The assessments of prediction methods from literature for flow boiling heat transfer proposed for normal gravitational conditions were evaluated through comparisons of calculated and experimental results. In general, for either a mass velocity of 428 kg/m2s or a vapor quality lower than -0.2, the gravitational effects on the heat transfer coefficient were found as negligible. For lower mass velocities and saturated flow boiling, higher heat transfer coefficients were observed under hypergravity conditions. This behavior was associated to the fact that higher gravitational forces favor bubbles detachment. The method of Kanizawa et al. [1] provided reasonable predictions of the saturated flow boiling results under microgravity and hyper gravity conditions, predicting 100% of the data within an error band of ±30%.