Two-phase pressure drop due to friction in micro channel
Published online on June 07, 2013
Abstract
This paper deals with an experimental investigation to measure the frictional pressure drops for two-phase flow boiling in a micro-channel with a hydraulic diameter of 500 µm. First, the experimental study is performed under the test conditions: heat fluxes ranging from 100 to 400 kW/m2, vapor qualities from 0 to 0.2, and mass fluxes of 200, 400 and 600 kg/m2s. Then, the frictional pressure drop during flow boiling is estimated using two models: the homogeneous model and the separated flow model. The experimental results show that the two-phase multiplier decreases with the increase of mass flux. In addition, the measured pressure drops are compared with those from a few correlation models available for macro-scales and mini/micro-scales. Finally, the present paper proposes a new correlation for two-phase frictional pressure drops in mini/micro-scales. This correlation model is developed based on the Chisholm constant C as a function of two-phase Reynolds and Weber numbers. It is found that the new correlation satisfactorily predicts the experimental data within mean absolute error (MAE) of 3.9%.