Estudo experimental da ebulição de hidrocarbonetos em tubo de multi mini canais

Abstract

This work presents an experimental study of heat transfer and pressure drop in boiling of isobutane, R600a, and propane, R290, in a tube composed of seven parallel mini channels, whose hydraulic diameter is 1.47 mm. Boiling tests were performed with a saturation temperature of 20 ºC for both refrigerants and saturation pressure of 300 kPa for R600a and 840 kPa for R290, with mass velocities between 35 and 170 kg/(m²s) and heat flux in the test section between 5.3 and 21 kW/m². According to the tests performed it was verified that the heat transfer coefficient for both refrigerant fluids increases as the heat flux and mass velocity increase. The heat transfer coefficient reached values between 1-18 kW/(m²K) for the R290 and 1-9 kW/(m²K) for the R600a. The pressure drop increased with increasing mass velocity and vapor quality in all tests, while the heat flux showed influence on the pressure drop only at higher mass velocities. It was observed that the pressure drop by acceleration presents the smallest portion, while the friction presents the largest portion. In the comparison between R290 and R600a, it was found that isobutane showed a higher pressure drop. Flow patterns were also analyzed, with isolated bubble, piston, agitated, annular and annular bubble patterns being observed, and the isolated bubble pattern was observed only for R290, and the annular pattern was present for quality higher than 0.4.