Sensitivity of the Non-Equilibrium Approach for Mixture Condensation to Heat and Mass Transfer Correlations and Thermophysical Properties

Abstract

The prediction of mixture condensation is still complex due to the coupled heat and mass transfer and insufficient data of thermophysical mixture properties. This article analyzes the impact of various heat and mass transfer correlations on the non-equilibrium approach for mixture condensation in a vertical plain tube. Furthermore, the influence of thermophysical properties from different databases is investigated. The results are shown for ethanol-water, but allow conclusions to other fluid mixtures. They indicate that the liquid heat transfer coefficient in the non-equilibrium approach dominates the qualitative behavior of the condensation process, but the vapor mass transfer coefficient can only decrease or increase the quantitative level of the effective heat transfer with minor impact. More importantly, the logarithm in the vapor mass transfer term is central for the prediction of the condensation heat transfer. As this logarithm contains vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) data, it proves that there is a strong connection between VLE and overall prediction of mixture condensation. A demonstration of available data for thermophysical mixture properties of ethanol-water shows significant deviations, which affect the calculations as well. Besides, data from our own experiments are presented for mixture viscosity of ethanol-water. It is recommended to focus not only on improved heat and mass transfer correlations but also on thermophysical properties and VLE data for a precise prediction of mixture condensation.