Experimental study of critical heat flux of refrigerant R1234yf in a multi-minichannel heat sink at medium saturation temperatures

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to present experimental results of saturated flow boiling critical heat flux for refrigerant R1234yf at medium reduced pressures. Tests were carried out by taking into account the influence of the saturation temperature and the mass flux. The former was let to vary from 25 up to 45 °C and the latter ranged from 150 up to 300 kg/m2s. The inlet sub-cooling was set from 6 to 10 K. Results are given in the form of boiling curves, from which the CHF was deduced as the heat flux corresponding to an evident decrease in the curve slope and a sudden spike of the wall superheat. The experimental results have shown that the mass flux has a significant influence on the CHF, whilst the latter is almost independent on the saturation temperature.