Critical Heat Fluxes of Subcooled Water Flow Boiling Against Outlet Subcooling in Short Vertical Tube

Abstract

The critical heat fluxes (CHFs) of subcooled water flow boiling are systematically measured for the flow velocities (u = 4.0 to 13.3 m/s), the outlet subcoolings (ΔTsub,out = 3 to 129 K) and the outlet pressure (Pout = 800 kPa). The SUS304 test tubes of 3, 6, 9 and 12 mm in inner-diameter, d, and 33, 66, 99 and 133 mm in length, L, respectively for L/d = 11 are used. The CHFs first become lower and then become higher with the increase in subcooling. The CHFs for four different inner-diameters with L/d = 11 measured here become higher with the decrease in the diameter. CHF correlation for the latter increasing regime was given in non-dimensional form against average outlet subcoolings based on the experimental data. The correlation can describe not only the CHFs obtained in this work at the outlet pressure of 800 kPa but also the authors’ published CHFs (1284 points) for the wide range of Pout = 159 kPa to 1 MPa, d = 6, 9 and 12 mm, L = 49, 99 and 149 mm, ΔTsub,out = −4 to 130 K and u = 4.0 to 13.3 m/s within 15% difference for 50 K≤ΔTsub,out≤130 K and within +30 to −10% for 30 K<ΔTsub,out<50 K.