The Effect of Linear Change of Tube Diameter on Subcooled Flow Boiling and Critical Heat Flux

Abstract

One of the major industry problems is the flow boiling, where reaching to the critical heat flux (CHF) condition can lead to a temperature jump and damage of the systems. In the present study, the effects of a uniform change in tube diameter on subcooled flow boiling and CHF was numerically investigated. The Euler-Euler model was used to investigate the relationship between the two liquid and vapor phases. The ANSYS Fluent code was used for simulation. According to the results, a linear increase in the tube diameter leads to increase of vapor volume fraction adjacent to the tube wall, as compared to a regular tube with a fixed-diameter, which leads to increase of the tube wall temperature due to the low value of the heat transfer coefficient. At CHF conditions, where the tube wall temperature is much higher than that in subcooled flow boiling, an increase in tube diameter may lead to higher tube wall temperature before the temperature jump, as compared to the post-jump temperature of a tube with a constant diameter. The best approach for decreasing the tube wall temperature was found to be a linear decrease in tube diameter. For the tube diameter change angles of <em>θ </em>< - 0.0383°, tube wall temperature exhibited a decreasing trend from the inlet of the tube to its end.