General Correlation for Heat Transfer to Gas–Liquid Flow in Vertical Channels

Abstract

A general correlation is presented for heat transfer during flow of gas–liquid mixtures flowing in vertical channels prior to dry out. It has been verified with a wide range of data that include upward and downward flow in heated and cooled tubes, annuli, and rectangular channels. The data are from 19 studies and include 14 gas–liquid mixtures with a wide range of properties. The parameters include pressure 1–6.9 bar, temperature 16–115 °C, liquid Reynolds number from 2 to 127,231, superficial gas and liquid velocities up to 87 and 13 m/s, respectively, and ratio of superficial gas and liquid velocities 0.03–1630. The 1022 data points are predicted by the new correlation with mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 18.1%. Several other correlations were also compared to the same data and had MAD of 28.6–45.5%.