Measurement of local wall temperature and heat flux using the two-thermocouple method for a heat transfer tube

Abstract

Abstract The two-thermocouple method was investigated experimentally to evaluate its accuracy for the measurement of local wall temperature and heat flux on a heat transfer tube with an electric heater rod installed in an annulus channel. This work revealed that a thermocouple flush-mounted in a surface groove serves as a good reference method for the accurate measurement of the wall temperature, whereas two thermocouples installed at different depths in the tube wall yield large bias errors in the calculation of local heat flux and wall temperature. These errors result from conductive and convective changes due to the fin effect of the thermocouple sheath. To eliminate the bias errors, we proposed a calibration method based on both the local heat flux and Reynolds number of the cooling water. The calibration method was validated with the measurement of local heat flux and wall temperature against experimental data obtained for single-phase convection and two-phase condensation flows inside the tube. In the manuscript, Section 1 introduces the importance of local heat flux and wall temperature measurement, Section 2 explains the experimental setup, and Section 3 provides the measured data, causes of measurement errors, and the developed calibration method.