Prediction of heat transfer during condensation in non-circular channels

Abstract

It is desirable to know whether correlations for condensation in round tubes can be used for non-circular channels. To investigate this matter, a number of well-known correlations for mini and macro channels as well as some for flattened channels were compared to a database for condensation in non-circular channels. Data included square, rectangular, triangular, semi-circular, drum, N, and W shaped channels as well as flattened tubes. The data included 15 fluids, hydraulic diameter 0.067 to 1.46 mm, aspect ratio 0.14 to 7, reduced pressure 0.045 to 0.77, and mass flux from 48 to 1000 kgm−2 s−1 . None of the correlations worked well for flattened tubes. Data for all other shapes were best predicted by the Shah correlation with mean absolute deviation of 20.1% with 1120 data points from 22 sources. None of the other correlations was found satisfactory over the entire range.