Local heat transfer analysis for boiling of hydrocarbons in complex geometries: A new approach for heat transfer prediction in staggered tube bundle

Abstract

This paper deals with heat transfer analysis for boiling flow in staggered tube bundle. A local analysis is performed to determine the heat transfer coefficient linked to local flow regimes by optical fibre. The first part of the paper is devoted to the literature survey of the main existing studies on the topic. We show that published heat transfer correlations deviate largely from each others and also from the experimental results that have been carried out. On these features, a new approach has been developed. It is based on the relationship between flow regimes and thermal characteristics. An experimental setup has been developed for the determination of the local heat transfer and the two-phase flow void fraction. A detailed analysis of the two-phase flow has been performed in a previous paper [1] in which two regimes were identified. In the present paper, focus is done on the heat transfer analysis in relation with the flow regime map. This new approach allows a better prediction of the heat transfer coefficient. For the bubbly flow, the heat transfer coefficient is well predicted by a classical correlation corresponding to nucleate boiling regime. For the dispersed flow, classical correlations for convective boiling are not adapted anymore for tube bundle. We evidenced that heat coefficient is mainly controlled by the vapour flow and a heat transfer law is derived using the vapour Reynolds number and vapour Prandlt number. These two heat transfer laws are used to evaluate heat transfer coefficient in the intermediate regime.