Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Bubble-assisted lm evaporation correlation for saline water at

sub-atmospheric pressures in horizontal-tube evaporator
Muhammad Wakil Shahzad a, Aung Myat a, Won Gee Chun b, Kim Choon Ng a, c, *
a

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore
Department of Nuclear and Energy Engineering, Cheju National University, 66 Jejudaehakno, Jejusi, South Korea
c
Water Desalination and Reuse Centre, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia
b

h i g h l i g h t s
< A lm evaporation correlation is proposed for pressure ranges from 0.93 to 3.60 kPa.
< The correlation is applicable for salinity range from 15,000 to 90,000 mg/l.
< Bubble-agitation enhances the heat transfer at low saturation temperature.
< The proposed correlation for the measured data has a regressed RMSE of 3.62%.

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 May 2012
Accepted 4 July 2012
Available online 13 July 2012

In falling lm evaporators, the overall heat transfer coefcient is controlled by lm thickness, velocity,
liquid properties and the temperature differential across the lm layer. This article presents the heat
transfer behavior for evaporative lm boiling on horizontal tubes, but working at low pressures of 0.93
e3.60 kPa (corresponding solution saturation temperatures of 279e300 K) as well as seawater salinity of
15,000 to 90,000 mg/l or ppm. Owing to a dearth of literature on lm-boiling at these conditions, the
article is motivated by the importance of evaporative lm boiling in the desalination processes such as
the multi-effect distillation (MED) or multi-stage ashing (MSF): It is observed that in addition to the
above-mentioned parameters, evaporative heat transfer of seawater is affected by the emergence of
micro-bubbles within the thin lm layer, particularly when the liquid saturation temperatures drop
below 298 K (3.1 kPa). Such micro bubbles are generated near to the tube wall surfaces and they
enhanced the heat transfer by two or more folds when compared with the predictions of conventional
evaporative lm boiling. The appearance of micro-bubbles is attributed to the rapid increase in the
specic volume of vapor, i.e., dv/dT, at low saturation temperature conditions. A new correlation is thus
proposed in this article and it shows good agreement to the measured data with an experimental
uncertainty of 8% and regression RMSE of 3.5%.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Horizontal tubes evaporators
Salinity
Low pressure evaporation
Falling lm evaporation
Heat transfer coefcient
Desalination

1. Introduction
In process industries such as the reneries, food and desalination plants, the need of high performance evaporators is of paramount importance so as to save energy for heat transfer as well as
to have a cost-effective size for the associated components. The
falling lm evaporators (FFE) form the key design components and
they have the advantages of high heat transfer rates whilst maintaining robust boiling processes that are less susceptible to changes
* Corresponding author. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National
University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore.
Tel.: 65 65162214; fax: 65 65161459.
E-mail address: mpengkc@nus.edu.sg (K.C. Ng).
1359-4311/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2012.07.003

in the feed quality. In the desalination application, the falling lm

evaporative process, besides having high heat transfer rates, it
reduces the equipment and maintenance costs by mitigating
corrosion and scaling. Table 1 shows a list of falling-lm evaporation heat transfer coefcient (FFEHTC) of many researchers found in
the literature and the associated operational conditions such as the
types of working uids, pressures and the temperature ranges and
evaporator design.
Many researchers investigated the different operational and
design parameters effect on evaporator performance. For example,
Li Xu et al. [1] found that with increase in saturation temperature
(more than 322 K) the average convective heat transfer coefcient
increases. Li Xu et al. [1] and L. Yang & S. Shen [2] investigated the
effect of liquid load and they found that increase in liquid load

M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

671

Table 1
A survey of available correlations for falling lm evaporation.
References

Correlation

Limitations
"

#0:333  
0:503
hfg $g$r21 $D2
d 0:422Dt
1011
$
D
Dt 2 $m1

Li Xu et al. [1]
hevaporation 05:169 

De-ionized water, 323 K, Horizontal

copper tubes evaporator.



dmax  dmin
1

Fujita et al. [3]

Freon R-11, Electrically heated ve horizontal

copper tubes, OD-25mm

For 1st tube:

Nu



2
Ref =3

0:008Ref 0:3 Pr0:25

1=2

For 2nd to 5th tubes:

Nu



2=
3

Ref

0:01Ref 0:3 Pr0:25

"

Han & Fletcher [5]

hevaporation 0:0028$

K. Bourouni et al. [8]

hf 2:2$

"

1=2

#0:333

m2l
g$r2l $k3l

ReG 0:5 Pr0:85

#0:333  
H 0:1
$
$Ref 0:333
OD
g$k3

n2f

"

m2l
g$r2l $k3l

Chun & Seban [19]

hfilm 0:821$

A.A. Alhusseini et al. [20]

For laminar region:

Pure water, 322e400 K, Electrical heated single

horizontal tube, OD-50.8 mm, thickness1.7 mm, Length-254 mm
Simple water, 333 K & 363 K, Polypropylene
horizontal tubes aero-evaporator, OD-25.4 mm,

#0:333
ReG 0:22

Pure water, 319e391 K, Electrical heated single

vertical tube, OD-28.58 mm, thickness-0.1 mm,
Length-292 mm
Propylene glycol & water

h*laminar 2:65$Re0:158 Ka0:0563

For combine:
h* h5laminar h5turbulent 1=5
J.A. Shmerler et al. [21]
L.H. Chien et al. [22]

h*E 0:0038$ReG 0:35 Pr0:95

0:09

Nucv 0:0386:ReG

0:986

$ReG

improves the heat transfer coefcient which is attributed to lm

uctuations. They also reported that increase in tubes diameter is
not favorable for heat transfer and this is due to more turbulence in
lm with smaller diameter. They also found that the heat transfer
coefcient increases with increasing heat ux. Fujita et al. [3]
studied that the heat transfer coefcient of top-tube rows is
lower than the tubes array beneath it and this is attributed to direct
feed supply. They also studied the effects of feeder types on lm
heat transfer coefcient for Freon R-11 at different tubes arranged
horizontally. Liu et al. [4] conducted experiments on various types
of tubes surface and found that the roll-worked tubes has three to
four times higher heat transfer rates than smooth tubes. They also
reported that both the ow conditions and tubes spacing has
negligible effect on the heat transfer coefcient. Fletcher et al. [5]
found that with increase in saturation temperature (more than
322 K) the average convective heat transfer coefcient increases.
They also analyzed that the highest heat transfer is at top of the
tubes and it decrease steadily around the tube. G. Ribatski and A. M.
Jacobi [6] studied that vapor ow effect the heat transfer coefcient
due to liquid drag and dry out of tubes. G. Aly et al. [7] investigated
the effect of deposits lm thickness on heat transfer coefcient and
the found drastic decrease in heat transfer with increase in deposition thickness. K. Bourouni et al. [8] performed the experiments
with aero-evaporator and they reported that increase in characteristic dimensions of heat exchanger signicantly increase the
evaporative performance. Uche et al. [9] provided a survey of
available correlations for horizontal tube lm evaporation and reported that all correlations were experimented at saturation

Pure water, Electrical heated single vertical tube,

OD-25.40 mm, Length-781 mm
R245fa, 278 K & 293 K, Horizontal smooth tubes.

temperatures more than 323 K. H. Glade et al. [10] investigated that

for desalination evaporators, and they recognized that scaling in
evaporators could be reduced at low saturation temperatures.
In the literature, however, there is a dearth of data for evaporative
lm boiling at low pressures, typically from 0.93 to 3.60 kPa where
the corresponding saturation temperatures are 279 K to 300 K.
In addition, the boiling data pertaining to saline solution of
15,000e90,000 mg/l or ppm is also scarce, and yet these operating
conditions of evaporators are particularly important for the desalting
processes found in MED and MSF plants. Many manufacturers of MED
and MSF plants, perhaps due to competition reason, are not revealing
their proprietary lm boiling data at these conditions. Thus, there is
motivation for a thorough investigation on aspects of heat transfer
rates at low pressures and various salinity levels. It is also believed that
at low solution temperatures, the rate of corrosion is reduced significantly. The objective of this study is to map the lm evaporation
behavior of a horizontal-tube evaporator, where feed saline solution is
sprayed in ne droplets over the external tube surfaces. An external
heat source, which is supplied as a coolant owing internally through
the tubes, maintains the conditions in the evaporator.
The Han & Fletchers correlation is the only available correlation
of lm boiling on horizontal tubes but the experiments used pure
water operating at much higher saturation temperatures of 322 K
and above. Adopting similar non-dimensional grouping, the authors
incorporated the effects of salinity, temperatures and vapor specic
volume and proposed correlation shows good agreement to the
measured data to within an experimental uncertainty of 8%. The
details of the proposed correlation are outlined in the section below.

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M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

2. Theoretical model
The Han & Fletcher correlation model comprises the Reynolds,
Prandtl and Nusselt numbers as non-dimensional terms, which
adequately describe the behavior of heat transfer from the surface
of liquid lm. However, this model is unable to capture the additional heat transfer enhancement mechanism may be present
when the vapour specic volume increases rapidly at low saturation temperatures. For example, the formation of micro-bubbles
just beneath the liquid layer above the tube surfaces causes much
ow and thermal gradient agitation. And such phenomena cannot
be described by the conventional heat transfer model.
Conventionally, the Han & Fletcher correlation is expressed as:

"
hevaporation 0:0028$

m2l
g$r2l $k3l

#0:333
ReG 0:5 Pr0:85

(1)

Alternatively, it can also be expressed in a more familiar form as

shown in Equation (2):

hevaporation
kl

m2l
g r2l

!1=3
Nu 0:0028ReG 0:5 Pr0:85

(2)

where the power indices and constant term are found for the
boundary conditions of lm boiling. Han and Fletcher conducted
their experiments with pure water at higher saturation temperatures of 322 K and above.
For the determination of the overall heat transfer coefcient, the
total heat transfer rate is computed via heat picked up by the
$
o
i
 Tch;w
and the
circulating water, i.e., Qoverall mch;w Cpch;w Tch;w
accuracy of the temperature sensors are within 0.1 K. Using the
concept of log mean temperature difference (LMTD) and the saturation temperature of evaporator, the overall heat transfer coefcient (UA)overall of the evaporator can be expressed as:




o
i
mch;w Cpch;w Tch;w
 Tch;w

9
UAoverall 8
>

 
>
>
>
>
>
>
o
i
=
< Tch;w
 Tsat  Tch;w
 Tsat >


>
>
o
>
>
Tch;w
 Tsat
>
>
>
>
;
:

ln 
i
Tch;w  Tsat

(3)

The local falling lm heat transfer coefcient (h) is deduced via

the resistance across the chilled water ow inside the tubes that is
calculated by the DittuseBoelter correlation. The pipe wall resistance (stainless steel 316) is negligible due to small thickness
(0.7 mm) and grooved surfaces. The water vapor resistance is also
ignored in the calculation because of the presence of agitation due
to water droplets being sprayed.
At low saturation temperatures, below 298 K, the tendency for
liquid lm to ash into vapor is made easier by the rapid increase in
the specic volume of vapor. For a given thermal gradient across
the liquid lm, micro-bubble is readily generated at suitable
nucleation sites, such as the grooved surfaces on the tubes. This
conjecture of bubble-agitation boiling is backed up by photographic evidence which indicates the presence of micro-bubble
generation beneath the liquid layer, as shown in Fig. 1(a). A
graphical elaboration of the presence of micro-bubbles is also
depicted in Fig. 1(a). The effect of micro-bubble during lm boiling
reduces the temperature gradient, as shown in Fig. 1(b). Such
a mechanism has two positive effects to increase the heat transfer
rates: Firstly, the drop in the temperature difference across the

liquid lm that increase the local heat transfer coefcient and

secondly, the formation of micro-bubbles draw heat from the tube
surfaces which also enhances the local heat transfer coefcient.
3. Experimentation
3.1. Apparatus
Fig. 2(a) shows the schematic of the horizontal tubes evaporator.
A total of 48 horizontal tubes (o.d. 16 mm, thickness 0.7 mm) are
arranged in 4-passes using a water box arrangement at the ends of
the exchanger. Each tube has a serrated groove surface of 0.3 mm
deep to increase the heat transfer as shown in Fig. 2(b). The chilled
water ow rate supplied to the evaporator is 48 L/min and the inlet
temperature of coolant is controlled by an electrical thyristor,
maintaining the coolant temperature uctuations to less that 0.1 K.
Seawater of constant salinity is maintained by reuxing the water
from condenser back to the evaporator. For lm liquid generation,
this is achieved by a spray pump where ne water droplets (nominally 0.1e0.15 mm diameter) are constantly sprayed from the top
surfaces. The design parameters of evaporator are given in Table 2.
Further details of the evaporator can be found in the previous
publications of the authors [11e18] where a prototype model of
adsorption desalination (AD) has been presented. Temperatures
sensors (thermistors of 0.1 K accuracy) are pre-calibrated and they
measured the both liquid and vapor states temperatures within the
evaporator as well as the inlet and outlet state of chilled water.
3.2. Experimental procedure
Prior to introducing the saline water, a de-aeration process is
applied on the saline feed to remove the trapped air and volatiles.
The seawater is sprayed on to the horizontal tubes by nozzles
provided inside the evaporator chamber, using a special magnetic
pump. The heat source is provided externally by the circulation of
chilled water owing inside the evaporator tubes and its temperature is maintained by electric heater. The heat transfer from
chilled water to falling lm outside the tubes causes the evaporation of saline solution. Regulating valves and ow meters are
provided with each circulation loop to adjust the ow rates, the
operational parameters are given in Table 3. A vacuum pump is
equipped with the system to pull the vacuum in case of air ingress
into the system and it maintained the saturation pressure inside the
evaporator according to chilled water temperature. The evaporator
saturation temperature is always maintained lower then chilled
water temperature to ensure the evaporation all the time. The
adsorption beds are connected to evaporator to adsorb the vapors
produced. This helps to maintain the continuous evaporation and
also helps to maintain lower evaporator saturation pressure. The
spray prole and evaporation phenomena are captured by a high
speed camera which is installed onto the evaporator. Fig. 1(a) shows
the pictures captured by camera during operation.
The apparatus is fully instrumented to capture all measured
data. A Yokogawa pressure transmitter of range 0e60 kpa abs.
(accuracy 0.25%) is installed on the evaporator for saturation
pressure readings. The OMEGA 5 kU type thermistors (accuracy
0.1 K) are used for temperature readings of evaporator and
different liquid streams. The KROHNE Flow meters (accuracy 0.5%
of reading) are used for ow rates. All temperature, pressure and
ow readings are continuously monitored by a data logger unit.
4. Results and discussion
Fig. 3 shows the evaporative heat transfer coefcients for
assorted evaporator saturation temperatures and seawater salinities

M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

673

Fig. 1. (a). Bubble formation on tube surface and spray model. (b). Bubble agitation in liquid lm.

in a three-dimensional plot. It is observed that heat transfer coefcient changes with solution salinity and saturation temperatures: At
a given solution salinity, it depicts minima at 295 K and then

increases with reducing saturation temperatures. The heat transfer

coefcient also increases with decreasing salinity and the increase is
more prominent at lower saturation temperatures. The latter

Fig. 2. (a). Detailed drawing of evaporator. (b). Evaporator tube cross sectional view.

674

M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

Table 2
Design parameters of the experimental evaporator.
Parameters

Values

Number of tubes
Length of each tube
Tube outer diameter
Tube thickness
No of passes
Shell diameter
Shell length

48
1900
16
0.7
4
558.8
2000

Units
mm
mm
mm
mm
mm

Table 3
Operational parameters of experimental evaporator.
Parameters

Values

Units

Chilled water ow rate

Seawater ow rate (G)

48
1.1

Evaporator saturation temperature

Evaporator saturation pressure
Feed water salinity range

279e300
0.93e3.60
15,000e90,000

LPM
LPM/m of
tube length
K
kPa
ppm

phenomenon is attributed to the rapid increase in specic volume of

vapour below 295 K. Such rapid increase the specic volume, as
shown in Fig. 4, may have contributed to the presence of bubbleagitation boiling. Bubble-agitation phenomenon in lm boiling has
an important role in enhancing the heat transfer rates because it
reduces the thermal barrier of liquid lm (graphically shown
Fig. 1(b)). The bubble-assisted evaporation phenomenon is not
captured by the Han & Fletcher correlation where it describes only
the thermally-driven lm evaporation at higher saturation
temperatures greater than 322 K.
Based on the new measurements, a correlation is proposed,
incorporating the additional effect from the bubble-agitation
boiling that is found to occur at low saturation temperatures. It
also includes the important parameters namely: salinity, saturation
temperature and vapour specic volume, as shown below;

"

hevaporation

"

m2l
0:277
g$r2l $k3l

#0:333

!14:70 #

 
0:41
S
Tsat
2$exp
1
ReG
Pr
So
Tref
!0:34 #
"
 q 1
vg
$
0:885$
DT
vref
2:11

4:55

(4)

Fig. 3. Experimental heat transfer coefcient for lm evaporation at low temperature

and salinity.

Fig. 4. Vapour specic volume gradient with saturation temperature.

A regression with these parameters against the measured

results is shown in Fig. 5and it gives a good agreement with the
experiments. In the experiments, the measured heat transfer input
has an uncertainty of less than 8%, while the heat transfer coefcients of all samples in Fig. 5 have a regression RMSE of 3.5%. The
additional terms used in the proposed correlation permit the limits
of salinity and temperature to be accounted for, and a reference
temperature, Tref, is taken as the reference temperature to match
the region of Han & Fletcher.
Proposed correlation is suitable for sub-atmospheric conditions,
pressure ranges from 0.93 to 3.60 kPa (saturation temperatures
279e300 K) and seawater salinity ranges from 15,000 to
90,000 mg/l. The lm Reynolds number ranges 45 < ReG < 90 and
Prandtl number ranges 5 < Pr < 10. In proposed correlation, the
rst term is for lm surface evaporation and second term is to
incorporate the bubble agitation assisted boiling effect.
As there is no available correlation for falling lm evaporative
heat transfer coefcient at sub-atmospheric pressures, the authors
could only compare the proposed heat transfer coefcients with
Han and Fletcher extrapolated region for pure water as shown in
Fig. 6. The Han & Fletcher correlation is good for lm surface
evaporation for 322 K and above. It can be seen that at low saturation temperatures, the bubble agitation phenomena boosted the
heat transfer coefcient by as much as two to three folds and Han &
Fletcher correlation is unable to capture this additional effect at low
saturation temperature.
The effect of evaporator saturation temperature and feed
salinity on heat input (Q) and log mean temperature difference
(LMTD) is also plotted in Figs. 7 and 8 where the measured accuracy
of log mean temperature difference (LMTD) and the heat input (Q)

Fig. 5. Proposed falling lm evaporation heat transfer correlation results.

M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

675

5. Conclusion

Fig. 6. Proposed correlation results compared with Han & Fletcher correlation
extrapolated region.

are 8%. The pressure ranges from 0.93 to 3.60 kPa which corresponds to saturation temperatures of 279e300 K whilst the salt
concentration in the evaporator are kept from 15,000 to
90,000 ppm or mg/l. It can be seen that both the heat input (Q) and
LMTD are increasing with increasing evaporator saturation
temperatures.

The lm boiling heat transfer coefcient for horizontal-tube

evaporator has been measured experimentally. A new lm evaporation correlation is proposed which is suitable for subatmospheric conditions, pressure ranges from 0.93 to 3.60 kPa
(saturation temperatures 279e300 K) and seawater salinity ranges
from 15,000 to 90,000 mg/l. At <295 K, the heat transfer coefcient
is found to increase with decreasing evaporator saturation
temperatures and this is due to bubble agitation effect because of
high vapor specic volume. The conventional Han & Fletcher
correlation give a poor prediction of the heat transfer coefcients at
low saturation temperature conditions (<295 K): Firstly, under
predict the results and secondly, it is unable to track the salinity
effect. In the proposed new correlation, the two terms are introduced to capture both lm surface evaporation and bubble agitation effects. This correlation is also able to handle seawater salinity
ranges from 15,000 to 90,000 mg/l or ppm at low saturation
temperature. It has good agreement with experimental results with
an experimental uncertainty of 8%.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thanks to King Abdullah University of
Science & Technology for nancial support for AD plant in the
National University of Singapore. The authors also would like to
thanks to Mr. Sacadevan Raghavan and Oscar (a KAUST intern
student) for their help throughout in experiments and valuable
suggestions, and the World Class University (WCU) program of
Korea, R-33-2009-000-10101660, Jeju National University (JNU),
Korea.
Nomenclature

ml
rl

Fig. 7. Effect of evaporator temperature & salinity on heat input (Q).

A
kl
ReG
Pr
S
So
q
Tevap
Tsat
Tref
Cpch,w

mch;w
i
Tch;w
o
Tch;w
vg

DT
h
U
G

Fig. 8. Effect of evaporator temperature & salinity on LMTD.

liquid viscosity (kg/m-sec)

liquid density (kg/m3)
Area of heat transfer (m2)
liquid conductivity (W/m K)
lm Reynolds number
Prandtl number
feed water salinity (ppm)
reference seawater salinity (30,000 ppm)
input heat ux (W/m2)
evaporator saturation temperature (K)
saturation temperature (K)
reference saturation temperature (K) (Tref 322 K)
specic heat of chilled water (kJ/kg K)
mass ow rate of chilled water (kg/sec)
chilled water inlet temperature (K)
chilled water outlet temperature (K)
vapor specic volume (m3/kg) (vref 52.65 m3/kg at
295 K)
temperature difference (K)
heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
overall heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
liquid lm ow rate per meter of tube length (LPM/m of
tube length)

Subscripts
l
liquid phase
g
gas phase
sat
saturation temperature (K)
ref
reference saturation temperature (322 K)
ch,w
chilled water

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M.W. Shahzad et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 50 (2013) 670e676

Abbreviations
MED
multi effect desalination
MSF
multi stage ash evaporation
FFE
falling lm evaporators
FFEHTC falling lm evaporation heat transfer coefcient
LMTD
log mean temperature difference
AD
adsorption desalination
ppm
part per million
LPM
liter per minute
RMSE
root mean square error
EHTC
evaporation heat transfer coefcient
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