Experimental study of falling film evaporation heat transfer coefficient on horizontal tube

Abstract

Abstract The horizontal-tube falling film evaporation is a widely adopted technique in multiple-effect distillation desalination plant. It has a high heat transfer coefficient under quite small temperature difference. In this paper, an experimental equipment for horizontal-tube falling film evaporation was set up. Experiments were carried out to show how the heat transfer coefficient is affected by different parameters including heat flux, circumference direction of tubes, spray density, evaporation temperature, and experimental fluid. Results indicate that the heat transfer coefficient decreases after a little increase with growth of spray density. The heat transfer coefficient decreases along the tube circumference, but at the bottom of the tube, it shows increasing trend. In addition, a simple comparison between seawater and fresh water in heat transfer coefficient is also provided.