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General correlation of two-phase frictional pressure drop inside smooth tubes

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Abstract

Calculating a two-phase pressure drop is required in many fields. A general and accurate correlation is still needed, although numerous studies of frictional pressure drop correlations have been conducted. Therefore, a wide range of experimental data points were collected on the two-phase pressure drop of smooth tubes, 2012 points, covering 16 refrigerants with tube diameters ranging from 1.88 to 12 mm. The experimental data points were compared and evaluated with nine widely used correlations and models. The results show that the (Kim and Mudawar in Journal of Int J Heat Mass Transf 55:3246-3261, 2012) correlation gives the best prediction, followed by the Wang et al. (Exp Therm Fluid Sci 15:395–405, 1997) correlation and Friedel (European Two-Phase Flow Group Meeting, Ispra, Italy, 1979) correlation with mean deviations of 26.94%, 27.26% and 29.76%, respectively. A general two-phase frictional pressure drop correlation is proposed. The proposed correlation is validated against the database and compared with other correlations. The proposed correlation agrees better with the database than the others, with an absolute mean deviation of 19.84%.

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Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Abbreviations

A D :

average deviation [%]

Bo :

Bond number [-]

C :

Chisholm parameter [-]

d :

diameter [m]

dp/dz :

pressure gradient [kPa m1]

f :

friction factor [-]

F r :

Froude number [-]

g :

gravitational acceleration [m s2]

G :

mass flux [kg m2 s1]

L a :

Laplace constant [-]

M D :

absolute mean deviation [%]

n :

number of data points [-]

p :

pressure [kPa]

R e :

Reynolds number [-]

S u :

Suratman number [-]

T :

temperature [°C]

W e :

Weber number [-]

X :

Lockhart - Martinelli parameter [-]

x :

vapor quality [-]

z :

channel length [m]

\(\mu\) :

dynamic viscosity [Pa s]

\(\rho\) :

density [kg m3]

\(\sigma\) :

surface tension [N m1]

\({\varnothing }^{2}\) :

two-phase multiplier

exp :

experimental

f :

frictional

l :

liquid

lo :

liquid only

pre :

predicted

sat :

saturation

tp :

two-phase

tt :

turbulent liquid-turbulent vapor

tv :

turbulent liquid-viscous vapor

v :

vapor

vo :

vapor only

vt :

viscous liquid-turbulent vapor

vv :

viscous liquid-viscous vapor

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Japan Copper Development Association for financial support, and one of the authors was supported by the State University of Jakarta-Saudi Fund for Development Scholarship Project (Phase-2) No. 105/PIU-SFD/UNJ/VII/2021.

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Authors

Contributions

I.W.S: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review and editing, Visualization. A.K.M: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Supervision. A.M: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Resources, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to I Wayan Sugita.

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Sugita, I.W., Mainil, A.K. & Miyara, A. General correlation of two-phase frictional pressure drop inside smooth tubes. Heat Mass Transfer (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-024-03470-3

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