R. MERTZ, Dipl.-Ing. and M. GROLL, Prof.Dr.-Ing.

Institute for Nuclear Technology and Energy Systems (IKE)

University of Stuttgart, Germany
Flow boiling from enhanced heat transfer surfaces with narrow channels

SYNOPSIS

Planar multi-channel test surfaces were tested in the flow boiling mode, using water and R141b
as working fluids under saturation conditions of 1 bar and 2 bar. The specimen were plain
copper plates with rectangular narrow channels, 1 mm, 2 mm or 3 mm wide and with aspect
ratios of up to 3. The experiments were carried out with varying heat inputs and with mass
fluxes of 50 kg/m2s, 100 kg/m2s, 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s.

1 INTRODUCTION

Due to the great potential of compact two-phase heat exchangers in modern process industries,
an improvement of these devices will be an important contribution to the reduction of energy
and material consumption. Thereby a more careful and efficient use of our natural resources and
less impact on the environment will be made possible.
The development of enhanced compact two-phase heat exchangers requires a good
understanding of the two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristics of these devices.
Experimental investigations are carried out at various research institutions to obtain a better
understanding of the complex two-phase thermofluiddynamic phenomena [e.g. 1, 2, 3]. The
ultimate goal is to obtain adequate desgin tools to design and optimise enhanced compact two-
phase heat exchangers. Thereby their performance can be increased over conventional heat
exchangers, i.e. higher thermal power for a given volume or vice versa.

2 DESCRIPTION OF WORK

2.1 Experimental set-up

For the experimental investigations of the specimen a flow boiling test rig, designed for
temperatures up to 120(C and pressures up to 2 bar, was built. It is used for both the
measurement of boiling heat transfer in multiple narrow channels and for visual observations of
the flow phenomena.
The test rig (Fig.1) consists of a fluid tank, containing the working fluid, with electric heating
system and internal cooling system. In this fluid tank the working fluid is heated up close to the
experimental temperature. A magnetically coupled gear pump is used to pump the working fluid
through a flow meter and a pre-heater, where it is heated up to the saturation temperature, before
entering the inlet of the test section. In the channels of the heated test specimen the fluid
evaporates and the two-phase mixture leaves the test specimen through the liquid outlet in the
upper part of the test section. A PC-based data acquisition system is used to measure data like
pressures, temperatures and mass fluxes, and to set control values of the power supply units for
the fluid tank heating and the specimen heating, respectively. The boiling phenomena are
recorded by a photo camera.

Figure 1: View of test rig

2.2 Experimental parameters

Specimen with multi-channel configuration, made of copper, comprising different numbers of
parallel channels, were tested in a vertical orientation. As working fluids water and R141b were
used. The experiments were carried out under different boundary conditions in the flow boiling
mode. Saturation temperatures corresponding to 1 bar and 2 bar were employed. Mass fluxes G
= 50 kg/m2s, 100 kg/m2s, 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s were applied. The active specimen area is
300 mm x 200 mm. To measure the wall temperatures 12 thermocouples are employed. Three
thermocouples each are located at 4 different levels, 37.5 mm, 112.5 mm, 187.5 mm and 262.5
mm from the bottom of the specimen area. The channel shapes are rectangular with the
following dimensions: width = 1 mm, depth = 1,2,3 mm (101 channels); width = 2 mm, depth
= 2,4,6 mm (50 channels); width = 3 mm, depth = 3,6,9 mm (32 channels). The specimen are
denominated as follows: first character: M for multi-channel; other characters: width x depth of
channels. E.g. a specimen with channels 1 mm wide and 3 mm deep is named M1x3.
3 RESULTS

3.1 Results for water

Experiments with water as working fluid were carried out under saturation conditions with 1
bar/ 100(C and 2 bar/120(C. The best results are shown in Figs. 2 to 5 for mass fluxes of 200
kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s as heat flux q vs. wall superheat T.

1000 1000
MULTI-CHANNEL MULTI-CHANNEL
VERTICAL VERTICAL
WATER AT 100 °C WATER AT 100 °C
G = 200 kg/m²s G = 300 kg/m²s

100 100
q [kW/m 2]

q [kW/m 2]
M1x1
M1x2 M1x1
M1x3 M1x2
10 M2x2 10 M1x3
M2x4 M2x2
M2x6 M2x4
M3x3 M2x6
M3x6 M3x3
M3x9 M3x6
1 1
1 10 ∆T [K] 100 1 10 ∆T [K] 100

Fig.2: Comparison of all multi-channel Fig.3: Comparison of all multi-channel

specimen, working fluid water at specimen, working fluid water at
100(C, mass flux 200 kg/m2s 100(C, mass flux 300 kg/m2s
1000 1000
MULTI-CHANNEL MULTI-CHANNEL
VERTICAL VERTICAL
WATER AT 120 °C WATER AT 120 °C
G = 200 kg/m²s G = 300 kg/m²s

100 100
q [kW/m2]

q [kW/m2]

10 M1x1 10 M1x1
M1x2 M1x2
M1x3 M1x3
M2x2 M2x2
M2x4 M2x4
M3x3 M3x3
1 1
1 10 ∆T [K] 100 1 10 ∆T [K] 100

Fig.4: Comparison of all mutli-channel Fig.5: Comparison of all multi-channel

specimen, working fluid water at specimen, working fluid water at
120(C, mass flux 200 kg/m2s 120(C, mass flux 300 kg/m2s

Almost all of the tested surfaces exhibit very similar boiling performances. For the experiments
with the lowest mass flux, 50 kg/m2s, most of the surfaces performed poorest. With increasing
mass fluxes of 100 kg/m2s, 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s, the experiments showed better results.
In general, the results for 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s were best. It seems that there exists an
optimum mass flux between about 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s for test sections with 2 mm or
3 mm channel width. For test sections with 1 mm wide channels the results of experiments with
300 kg/m 2s are similar as or better than those of the experiments with 200 kg/m2s. The
employed heat flux range was from 20 kW/m2 to 130 kW/m2, i.e.  2% to 15 % of DNB. For
almost all experiments best results were obtained with specimen M2x4.
3.2 Results for R141b
As second working fluid R141b was used for experiments under saturation conditions with
1 bar/30(C and 2 bar/50(C. Figures 6 to 9 exhibit the best results for mass fluxes of 200 kg/m2s
and 300 kg/m2s as heat flux q vs. wall superheat T.

1000 1000
MULTI-CHANNEL MULTI-CHANNEL
VERTICAL VERTICAL
R141b AT 30 °C R141b AT 30 °C
G = 200 kg/m²s G = 300 kg/m²s

100 100
q [kW/m 2]

q [kW/m 2]
10 M1x1 10 M1x1
M1x2 M1x2
M1x3 M1x3
M2x2 M2x2
M2x4 M2x4
M3x3 M3x3
1 1
1 10 ∆T [K] 100 1 10 ∆T [K] 100

Fig.6: Comparison of all multi-channel Fig.7: Comparison of all multi-channel

specimen, working fluid R141b at specimen, working fluid R141b at
30(C, mass flux 200 kg/m2s 30(C, mass flux 300kg/m2s
1000 1000
MULTI-CHANNEL MULTI-CHANNEL
VERTICAL VERTICAL
R141b AT 50 °C R141b AT 50 °C
G = 200 kg/m²s G = 300 kg/m²s

100 100
q [kW/m2]

q [kW/m2]

10 M1x1 10 M1x1
M1x2 M1x2
M1x3 M1x3
M2x2 M2x2
M2x4 M2x4
M3x3 M3x3
1 1
1 10 ∆T [K] 100 1 10 ∆T [K] 100

Fig.8. Comparison of all multi-channel Fig.9: Comparison of all multi-channel

specimen, working fluid R141b at specimen, working fluid R141b at
50(C, mass flux 300 kg/m2s 50(C, mass flux 300 kg/m2s
100 100
MULTI-CHANNEL MULTI-CHANNEL
VERTICAL VERTICAL
α [kW/m2K]

WATER AT 120 °C R141b AT 30 °C

G = 200 kg/m²s G = 200 kg/m²s

10
α [kW/m2K]

10

M1x1 1 M1x1
M1x2 M1x2
M1x3 M1x3
M2x2 M2x2
M2x4 M2x4
M3x3 M3x3
1 0.1
1 10 q [kW/m2] 100 1000 1 10 q [kW/m2] 100 1000

Fig.10: Heat transfer coefficient vs. heat Fig.11: Heat transfer coefficient vs. heat
flux for all multi-channel flux for all multi-channel
specimen, working fluid water at specimen, working fluid R141b at
120(C, mass flux 200 kg/m2s 30(C, mass flux 200 kg/m2s
Poorest results were obtained for the experiments with mass flux 50 kg/m2s. For higher mass
fluxes of 100 kg/m2 s, 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s, the results became better. Again there exists
an optimum mass flux between about 200 kg/m2s and 300 kg/m2s for test sections with 2 mm or
3 mm channel width. For test sections with 1 mm wide channels the results of experiments with
300 kg/m 2s are similar as or better than those of the experiments with 200 kg/m2s. The
employed heat flux range was from about 5 kW/m2 to 50 kW/m2, i.e.  1% to 10% of DNB.
Again test section M2x4 shows significantly better performances than all other test sections,
especially for higher heat fluxes.
Figures 10 and 11 exhibit the heat transfer coefficient vs. the heat flux for water at 2 bar/120(C,
G = 200 kg/m 2s and for R141b at 1 bar/30(C, G = 200 kg/m2s . For water the heat transfer
coefficients are in a range between 6 to 16 kW/m2K for low heat fluxes and 3 to 6 kW/m2K for
high heat fluxes. For working fluid R141b the range of  is between about 1 and 2 kW/m2K.

3.3 Visualization
The boiling phenomena were visualized and recorded on photos. It could be observed, that with
increasing heat flux, the boiling in the channels followed the well-known sequence from
generation and flow of isolated bubbles to generation of confined bubbles and slug flow and
further to annular flow [e.g. 4]. Depending on the different channel geometries the heat flux
range varied for the different boiling modes.
For working fluid water and geometries with wide and deep channels (M3x3, M2x4) a distinct
nucleate boiling occurred, which changed to confined bubble formation and then to annular
flow. Each flow boiling regime could be observed very clearly and was well separated from the
other. For test sections with smaller channel geometries the lifetime of the single bubbles
decreased, and for some test sections like M1x2 and M1x1 it was very difficult to observe single
bubbles.
For working fluid R141b smaller bubbles occurred, and the flow boiling pattern changed already
at rather low heat fluxes to confined bubbles and then to annular flow. The annular flow regime
existed nearly during the whole experiment, from rather low to high heat fluxes.This holds for
all channel geometries.
Another observed phenomenon was that the evaporation in the channels seems not to be a
continuous process, a boiling pulsation occurred. The frequency of bubble generation increased
for the smaller and flatter channels. The vapour did not leave the channels immediately. It
stayed in the channels during the bubble growth time and also for a certain time thereafter. For
lower mass fluxes and high heat fluxes (to a lesser degree for medium heat fluxes), some
channels were completely filled with vapour which blocked the channels or even moved in the
opposite direction of the liquid flow.

REFERENCES
(1) Ishibashi, E., Nishikawa, K., Saturated Boiling Heat Transfer in Narrow Spaces, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transfer, Vol 12, pp 863ff, 1969
(2) Kew, P., Cornwell, K., Confined Bubble Flow and Boiling in Narrow Spaces, 10th Int. Heat
Transfer Conference, Brighton, 1994
(3) Groll, M., Mertz, R., Enhanced Evaporation Heat Transfer Surfaces, Commission of the
European Communities, Joule r&d programme, JOUE-0041-C, Final Report, 1993
(4) Kakaç, S., Bergles, A.E., Fernandes, E.O., Two-Phase Flow in Heat Exchangers, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1988
Research funded in part by THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES in the framework of the
JOULE Programme: Rational Use of Energy.