Abstract
Flow boiling and flow condensation are often regarded as two opposite or
symmetrical phenomena. Their description however with a single correlation
has yet to be suggested. In the case of flow boiling in minichannels there
is mostly encountered the annular flow structure, where the bubble
generation is not present. Similar picture holds for the case of inside
tube condensation, where annular flow structure predominates. In such case
the heat transfer coefficient is primarily dependent on the convective
mechanism. In the paper a method developed earlier by the first author is
applied to calculations of heat transfer coefficient for inside tube
condensation. The method has been verified using experimental data from
literature on several fluids in different microchannels and compared to
three well established correlations for calculations of heat transfer
coefficient in flow condensation. It clearly stems from the results
presented here that the flow condensation can be modeled in terms of
appropriately devised pressure drop.
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