Investigation of R134a Flow Boiling Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop in the Evaporator Test Section of Refrigeration System

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical analysis to investigate the two-phase flow boiling heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of the refrigerant R-134a in the evaporator test section of the refrigeration system under different operating conditions. The test conditions considered are, for heat flux (13.7-36.6) kW/m2, mass flux (52-105) kg/m2.s, vapor quality (0.2-1) and saturation temperature (-15 to -3.7) ˚C. Experiments were carried out using a test rig for a 310W capacity refrigeration system, which is designed and constructed in the current work. Investigating of the experimental results has revealed that, the enhancement in local heat transfer coefficient for relatively higher heat flux 36.6 kW/m2 was about 38% compared to 13.7 kW/m2 at constant operating conditions. The enhancement in heat transfer coefficient was about 57% when the mass flux increased from 52 kg/m2.s to 105 kg/m2.s at constant test conditions. The enhancement in the heat transfer coefficient was about 64% when the saturation temperature increased from -8 to -3.7 at fixed refrigerant mass velocity and heat flux. The effect of mass velocity on pressure drop was relatively higher by about 27% than that for heat flux at specified test conditions. The comparison between the experimental and theoretical results has shown an acceptable agreement with an average deviation of 21%.

Keywords

• heat transfer, pressure drop, flow boiling, heat flux.