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Heat transfer characteristics and field synergy analysis of gas–liquid two-phase flow in micro-channels

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Abstract

To meet the extreme cooling requirements in many high-tech fields, it is essential and meaningful to reveal the dominant factors of heat transfer performance of gas–liquid two-phase flow in micro-channel. In the present work, the flow and heat transfer characteristics of bubbly, slug and annular flow in circular micro-channel are numerically studied with the VOF model. Moreover, the field synergy principle is introduced to reveal the dominant mechanisms of heat transfer improvement under various flow patterns. As a result, the evolutions of local Nusselt number, volume fraction and near-wall average field synergy angle along the flow direction under various flow patterns are obtained. Moreover, the effects of gas and liquid flow rates are discussed on the average Nusselt numbers and average field synergy angle. The numerical results indicate that the heat transfer performance of gas–liquid two-phase flow is better than single-phase flow, and the slug flow owns the best heat transfer performance. It should be noted that the heat transfer enhancement of bubbly and slug flow is attributed to the decrease in field synergy angle in the boundary layer. By contrast, the liquid phase velocity near the wall plays a dominant role in heat transfer enhancement of annular flow. Furthermore, the heat transfer performance of gas–liquid two-phase flow is strongly influenced by the gas flow rate, and Reg= 24.5 is the optimal value to enhance heat transfer performance for the condition of Rel= 445. The results are expected to provide theoretical guidance for the design and optimization of the micro-channel heat exchangers.

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Abbreviations

A :

Cross-sectional area of micro-channel, m2

Bo :

Bond number \(\left( {(\rho_{\text{l}} - \rho_{\text{g}} )aD^{2} /\sigma } \right)\)

c p :

Heat capacity, J kg−1 K−1

d :

Channel diameter, mm

d 0 :

The inner core diameter of the pipe, mm

e :

Internal energy, J kg−1

\(\overrightarrow {F}_{\text{S}}\) :

Surface tension term, N

H :

Enthalpy, J kg−1

L :

Channel length, mm

Nu x :

Local Nusselt number

Nu m :

Average Nusselt number on the heated section

P :

Pressure, Pa

Q g :

Gas volumetric flow rate, m3 s−1

Q l :

Liquid volumetric flow rate, m3 s−1

q w :

Wall heat flux, W m−2

Re g :

Gas superficial Reynolds number

Re l :

Liquid superficial Reynolds number

R :

Channel radius, mm

r :

Radial coordinate, mm

T :

Temperature, K

T av :

Average temperature of fluid on the heated section, K

T b :

Bulk temperature, K

\(\nabla \mathop T\limits^{ \to }\) :

Temperature gradient vector, K m−1

T w :

Wall temperature, K

t :

Time, s

\(\overrightarrow {U}\) :

Velocity vector

j g :

Gas superficial velocity, m s−1

j l :

Liquid superficial velocity, m s−1

u :

Radial velocity, m s−1

V i :

Volume per control volume

x :

Axial coordinate, mm

\(\alpha_{\text{g}}\) :

Gas volume fraction

\(\alpha_{\text{l}}\) :

Liquid volume fraction (1 − αg)

\(\rho_{\text{g}}\) :

Gas density, kg m−3

\(\rho_{\text{l}}\) :

Liquid density, kg m−3

\(\mu_{\text{g}}\) :

Gas dynamic viscosity, Pa s

\(\mu_{\text{l}}\) :

Liquid dynamic viscosity, Pa s

\(\lambda_{\text{l}}\) :

Liquid’s thermal conductivity, W m−1 K−1

\(\theta_{\text{i}}\) :

Local field synergy angle, deg

\(\theta_{\text{av}}\) :

Average field synergy angle, deg

av:

Average value

b:

Bulk mean

i:

Per control volume

g:

Gas

l:

Liquid

w:

Wall

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51676208 and 51906257), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 18CX07012A and 19CX05002A) and the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M642724).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy and Power Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, Shandong, China

    Xin-Yue Duan, Fang-Bo Li, Bin Ding, Liang Gong & Ming-Hai Xu

  2. Institute of New Energy, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, Shandong, China

    Bin Ding & Liang Gong

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  1. Xin-Yue Duan
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Correspondence to Bin Ding.

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Duan, XY., Li, FB., Ding, B. et al. Heat transfer characteristics and field synergy analysis of gas–liquid two-phase flow in micro-channels. J Therm Anal Calorim 141, 401–412 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-019-08821-5

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