Two-phase flow boiling frictional pressure drop of liquid nitrogen in horizontal circular mini-tubes: Experimental investigation and comparison with correlations

  • Xingya Chen
  • , Shuangtao Chen
  • , Jun Chen
  • , Jiapeng Li
  • , Xiufang Liu
  • , Liang Chen
  • , Yu Hou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The two-phase flow boiling characteristics of liquid nitrogen (LN2) in horizontal circular mini-tubes were experimentally studied. Experiments were performed in a wide range of flow conditions, e.g. inlet pressure from 0.17 to 0.35 MPa, mass flux from 140 to 330 kg/m2 s, heat flux from 0.5 to 69.4 kW/m2 and tube diameters of 2.92 mm and 3.96 mm. The influences of mass flux, heat flux, and inlet pressure on the pressure drop were discussed. The results indicated that the pressure drop increases with the increasing mass flux and heat flux but decreases with the increasing inlet pressure. But the influence of heat flux on the frictional pressure drop of LN2 was weaker than mass flux and inlet pressure. The frictional pressure drop of two-phase flow of LN2 was compared with homogeneous model and several semi-empirical correlations. An improved correlation based on the Lockhart-Martinelli model, which used coefficient C as a function of Reynolds number and Weber number was proposed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)85-94
Number of pages10
JournalCryogenics
Volume83
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2017

Keywords

  • Frictional pressure drop
  • Horizontal circular mini-tube
  • Liquid nitrogen
  • Two-phase flow

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