Experimental study of in-tube cooling heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of R134a at supercritical pressures

The in-tube cooling flow and heat transfer characteristics of R134a at supercritical pressures are measured experimentally for various pressures and mass fluxes in a horizontal tube. The tube is made of stainless steel with an inner diameter of 4.01 mm. Experiments are conducted for mass fluxes from 70 kg/m2 s to 405 kg/m2 s and pressures from 4.5 MPa to 5.5 MPa. The inlet refrigerant temperature is from 80 °C to 140 °C. The results show that the refrigerant temperature, the mass flux and the pressure all significantly affect the flow and heat transfer characteristics of R134a at supercritical pressures. The experimentally measured frictional pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient are compared with predicted results from several existing correlations. The comparisons show that the predicted frictional pressure drop using Petrov and Popov’s correlation accounting for the density and viscosity variations agree well with the measured data. Gnielinski’s correlation for the heat transfer coefficient agrees best with the measured data with deviations not exceeding 25%, while correlations based on supercritical CO2 heat transfer data overcorrect for the influence of the thermophysical property variations resulting in larger deviations. A new empirical correlation is developed based on the measured results by modifying Gnielinski’s equation with thermophysical property terms including both the property variations from the inlet to the outlet of the entire test section and from the bulk to the wall. Most of the experimental data is predicted by the new correlation within a range of 15%.