Investigation of the critical heat flux in small-diameter channels

Abstract

The paper describes experimental studies into the hydrodynamics and heat exchange in a forced water flow in small-diameter channels at low pressures. The timeliness of the studies has been defined by the growing interest in small-size heat exchangers. Small-diameter channels are actively used in components of compact heat exchangers for present-day engineering development applications. The major difficulty involved in investigation of heat-transfer processes in small-diameter channels consists in the absence of common methodologies to calculate coefficients of hydraulic resistance and heat transfer in a two-phase flow. The channel size influences the heat exchange and hydrodynamics of a two-phase flow as one of the determining parameters since the existing internal scales (vapor bubble size, liquid droplet diameter, film thickness) may become commensurable with the channel diameter, this leading potentially to different flow conditions. It is evident that one cannot justifiably expect a change in the momentum and energy transfer regularities in single-phase flows as the channel size is reduced for as long as the continuum approximation remains valid. The authors have analyzed the experiments undertaken by Russian scientists to investigate the distribution of thermal-hydraulic parameters in channels with a small cross-section in the entire variation range of the flow parameters in the channel up to the critical heat flux conditions when the wall temperature increases sharply as the thermal load grows slowly. The experimental critical heat flux data obtained by Russian and foreign authors has been compared.