Study on Forced Convective Heat Transfer of FC-72 in Vertical Small Tubes

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the forced convective heat transfer of FC-72 in vertical tubes at various velocities, inlet temperatures, and tube sizes. Exponentially escalating heat inputs were supplied to the small tubes with inner diameters of 1, 1.8, and 2.8 mm and effective heated lengths between 30.1 and 50.2 mm. The exponential periods of heat input range from 6.4 to 15.5 s. The experimental data suggest that the convective heat transfer coefficients increase with an increase in flow velocity and µ/µw (refers to the viscosity evaluated at the bulk liquid temperature over the liquid viscosity estimated at the tube inner surface temperature). When tube diameter and the ratio of effective heated length to inner diameter decrease, the convective heat transfer coefficients increase as well. The experimental data were nondimensionalized to explore the effect of Reynolds number (Re) on forced convection heat transfer coefficient. It was found that the Nusselt numbers (Nu) are influenced by the Re for d = 2.8 mm in the same pattern as the conventional correlations. However, the dependences of Nu on Re for d = 1 and 1.8 mm show different trends. It means that the conventional heat transfer correlations are inadequate to predict the forced convective heat transfer in minichannels. The experimental data for tubes with diameters of 1, 1.8, and 2.8 mm were well correlated separately. And, the data agree with the proposed correlations within ±15%.