Flow Boiling Heat Transfer and Dryout Characteristics of R600a in a Vertical Minichannel

Abstract

Refrigerant-related environmental concerns forced legislative bodies to phase out some types of refrigerants, namely, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and in the near future European legislation will be affecting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as well. Natural refrigerants such as hydrocarbons can thus be expected to be more common as refrigerants in the future. Experimental findings on flow boiling heat transfer and dryout characteristics of isobutane (R600a) in a uniformly heated, vertical, stainless-steel test section (1.60 mm inside diameter and 245 mm heated length) are reported in this article. The experiments were conducted at two saturation pressures corresponding to the temperatures of 27 and 32°C, with five mass fluxes in the range 50–350 kg/m2-s and at outlet vapor qualities up to dryout conditions. Analysis showed that heat transfer was primarily controlled by the applied heat flux with insignificant effect of mass flux and vapor quality. The dryout heat flux increased with increasing mass flux; however, no significant effect of varying saturation temperature was observed. The experimental results (for heat transfer and dryout) were compared with different macro and microscale correlations from the literature.