Experimental investigation of a two-phase closed thermosyphon charged with hydrocarbon and Freon refrigerants

Abstract

Two-phase closed thermosyphons (TPCTs) are simple, efficient, and low cost heat exchangers. They have been explored for use in the renewable energy resource utilization marker and low grade thermal energy heat recovery systems. Freon R134a has been extensively used in refrigeration systems and researched as a working fluid of TPCTs; however; it has high global warming potential and operating pressure. In this paper, an experimental investigation of the performance of TPCTs charged with eight working fluids: R134a, R601, R245fa, R600a, R1234ze, R152a, R245fa/R152a, and R601/R245fa have been carried out. The experimental results showed that R245fa/R152a offered the best performance in maximum heat transfer rate. R134a outperformed the other pure working fluids, while R600a and R1234ze had close performances to that of R134a. R245fa showed marginal improvement at higher operating temperatures. The predictions of six evaporation heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) correlations, including Imura, Shiraishi, Labuntsov, Kutateladze, Cooper, and Rohsenow were compared with the experimental results. In the five constant coefficients and powers correlations, the Shiraishi and Cooper correlations had superior accuracy. The coefficients and powers of the Rohsenow correlations fitted based on the experimental data, while they had the best accuracy. Nusselt and Hashimoto-Kaminaga correlations were chosen to predict the condensation HTCs. Both of them tend to over-predict the condensation HTCs in low heat fluxes while under-predicting in high heat fluxes. The experimental results had greater agreement with Hashimoto and Kaminaga correlations.