Flow boiling heat transfer in mini-channels

In view of practical significance of a correlation of heat transfer coefficient in the aspect of such applications as engineering design and prediction, some efforts towards correlating flow boiling heat transfer coefficients for mini-channels have been made in this study. Based on analyses of existing experimental investigations of flow boiling, it was found that liquid-laminar and gas-turbulent flow is a common feature in many applications of mini-channels. Traditional heat transfer correlations for saturated flow boiling were developed for liquid-turbulent and gas-turbulent flow conditions and thus may not be suitable in principle to be used to predict heat transfer coefficients in mini-channels when flow conditions are liquid-laminar and gas-turbulent. By considering flow conditions (laminar or turbulent) in the Reynolds number factor F and single-phase heat transfer coefficient hsp, the Chen correlation has been modified to be used for four flow conditions such as liquid-laminar and gas-turbulent one often occurring in mini-channels. A comparison of the newly developed correlation with various existing data for mini-channels shows a satisfactory agreement. In addition, an extensive comparison of existing general correlations with databases for mini-channels has also been made. (author)