Flow and heat transfer in vertical annuli

In shell-side boiling heat exchangers narrow crevices that are formed between the tubes and the tube support structure provide areas for local conditions which differ significantly from the bulk fluid conditions. A quasi-two-dimensional model which was developed to describe the local phenomena in a vertical, cylindrical crevice was described previously. The present work compares experimentally obtained flow and tube temperature distributions to those predicted by the model. The results confirm the characteristic ''W'' shape of the tube temperature profile centered at the line contact between a heated tube and tube support