Critical heat flux of saturated flow boiling for R245fa under hypergravity

Critical heat flux (CHF) is a very important design parameter for safe operation of heat dissipation applications onboard flight vehicles. Saturated flow boiling CHF experiments , aimed at investigating the influence of hypergravity, were conducted. The working fluid was R245fa refrigerant flowing inside a horizontal copper tube of 2.43 mm inner diameter. A turntable was used to simulate the hypergravity environment. Two mass fluxes (156.7, 236 kg/m2 s) with different inlet vapor qualities (0.1-0.67) and gravity levels (1 g-2.77 g) were tested under the inlet pressure of 250.5 kPa. Besides, the limiting heat flux qlim, under which the vapor quality at the tube outlet equals one, was defined for theoretical analysis, and the gravitational effect on boiling curves was provided. The results show that with decrease in inlet vapor quality, CHF increases and outlet vapor quality at the CHF decreases. However, for low mass flux of 156.7 kg/m2 s and normal gravity, the increase in CHF is weakened with decreasing inlet vapor quality, and the deviation between the CHF and the corresponding limiting heat flux increases. Raising gravity level raises saturated CHF as well as the corresponding outlet vapor quality, and thus narrows the above deviation. For high mass flux (236 kg/m2 s), the CHFs under different gravity levels (from 1 g to 1.75 g) are almost the same for the same inlet vapor quality. They increase approximately linearly with decreasing inlet vapor quality, and gradually deviate from the qlim line, corresponding to a decrease of the outlet vapor quality when CHF occurs.

Automated summary

Saturated flow boiling CHF experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of hypergravity on the working fluid R245fa refrigerant flowing inside a horizontal copper tube. The results show that as the inlet vapor quality decreases, CHF increases and outlet vapor quality at CHF decreases. However, for low mass flux and normal gravity, the increase in CHF weakens with decreasing inlet vapor quality, and the deviation between CHF and the corresponding limiting heat flux increases. Increasing gravity level increases saturated CHF and corresponding outlet vapor quality, thus narrowing the deviation. For high mass flux, CHFs under different gravity levels are almost the same and increase linearly with decreasing inlet vapor quality, gradually deviating from the qlim line.