The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient determination in a minichannel used the FEM combined with Trefftz functions

Abstract

The method of solving the inverse heat conduction problem, by means of the FEM with Trefftz-type basis functions, during flow boiling in a minichannel was shown. This basis functions were constructed with using the Hermite interpolation and Trefftz functions. The aim of the numerical calculations was to determine the local heat transfer coefficient on the basis of experimental data in a horizontally oriented minichannel. The refrigerant flowing along the minichannel (HFE-649 or HFE-7100) was heated by a thin enhanced plate by vibration-assisted laser texturing. The temperature on an outer smooth side of the plate was detected by means of infrared thermography. On the heated wall–fluid contact surface in the minichannel the heat transfer coefficient was obtained from the Robin boundary condition. It was assumed that the temperature distribution in the heated plate was described by the Poisson equation. The unknown values of temperature and temperature derivatives at nodes were computed by minimizing the functional which describes the mean square error of the approximate solution on the boundary and along common edges of neighbouring elements. The results were presented as the heated plate temperature and heat transfer coefficient versus the minichannel length.