Application of the 2-D Trefftz Method for Identification of Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficient in a Rectangular MiniChannel

Mirosław Grabowski , Sylwia Hożejowska , B. Maciejewska , Krzysztof Płaczkowski , Mieczysław E. Poniewski

Abstract

The study presents the experimental and numeric heat transfer investigations in flow boiling of water through an asymmetrically heated, rectangular and horizontal minichannel, with transparent side walls. A dedicated system was designed to record images of two-phase flow structures using a high-speed video camera with a synchronous movement system. The images were analyzed with Matlab 2019a scripts for determination of the void fraction for each pattern of two-phase flow structures observed. The experimental data measured during the experimental runs included inlet and outlet temperature, temperature at three internal points of the heater body, volume flux of the flowing water, inlet pressure, pressure drop, current and the voltage drop in the heater power supply. The flows were investigated at Reynolds number characteristic of laminar flow. The mathematical model assumed the heat transfer process in the measurement module to be steady-state with temperature independent thermal properties of solids and flowing fluid. The defined two inverse heat transfer problems were solved with the Trefftz method with two sets of T- functions. Graphs were used to represent: the boiling curves, the local void fraction values, the boiling heat transfer coefficients and the errors of both of them for selected mass fluxes and heat fluxes.