Measured and predicted upward flow boiling heat transfer coefficients for hydrocarbon mixtures inside a cryogenic plate fin heat exchanger

Boiling of hydrocarbon mixtures inside plate fin heat exchangers (PFHEs) is most prevalent in many cryogenic processes of petrochemical plants. However, there is very little experimental data and a lack of prediction methods regarding boiling mixtures in PFHEs. This paper established an experimental setup that utilized a single-stage cryogenic cycle to measure the boiling heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) for hydrocarbon mixtures inside a perforated PFHE. The components of the mixtures include methane, ethylene, propane and isobutene. Twenty-seven sets of experiments were conducted under various operating conditions and 261 data points of the boiling HTC were obtained. The experimental conditions cover the mass fluxes of 3.69-19.38 kg m−2 s−1, pressures of 1.35-5.22 bar and vapor qualities of 0.05-0.77, which are representative of a wide range of actual industrial conditions. The corresponding heat fluxes only range from 55.7 to 3837.3 W m−2. The experimental boiling HTC varies from 21.4 to 1055.7 W m−2 K−1, and it is a strong function of the heat flux. Moreover, twelve existing correlations were assessed by using the present experimental data. The results show that the HTCs predicted by Chen type correlations were not consistent with the experimental results, and a new correlation developed from mini-channel correlations was recommended.