Two-phase flow and boiling heat transfer in two vertical narrow annuli

Experimental study associated with two-phase flow and heat transfer during flow boiling in two vertical narrow annuli has been conducted. The parameters examined were: mass flux from 38.8 to 163.1 kg/m2 s; heat flux from 4.9 to 50.7 kW/m2 for inside tube and from 4.2 to 78.8 kW/m2 for outside tube; equilibrium mass quality from 0.02 to 0.88; system pressure from 1.5 to 6.0 MPa. It was found that the boiling heat transfer was strongly influenced by heat flux, while the effect of mass velocity and mass quality were not very significant. This suggested that the boiling heat transfer was mainly via nucleate boiling. The data were used to develop a new correlation for boiling heat transfer in the narrow annuli. In the two-phase flow study, the comparison with the correlation of Chisholm [Chisholm, D., 1967. A theoretical basis for the Lockhart-Martinelli correlation for two-phase flow. Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 10, 1767-1778] and Mishima and Hibiki [Mishima, K., Hibiki, T., 1996. Some characteristics of air-water two-phase flow in small diameter vertical tubes. Int. J. Multiphase Flow 22, 703-712] indicated that the existing correlations could not predict the two-phase multiplier in the narrow annuli well. Based on the experimental data, a new correlation was developed.