Characterisation of the hydraulic maldistribution in a heat exchanger by local measurement of convective heat transfer coefficients using infrared thermography

• A new method to measure the distribution of heat transfer coefficients on a heat exchanger had been developed.
• This non-intrusive method requires a low heat flux.
• Fluid properties and flow rate knowledge are not required.

A methodology was developed to characterise the heat exchangers' performance decrease due to two-phase flow maldistribution. It consists in measuring the spatial distribution of the local heat transfer coefficients with a rapid, non-invasive and fluid independent method. The method is based on the infrared (IR) thermography measurement of the temperature response to an oscillating heat flux. The amplitude of the measured temperatures is compared to the solution of an analytical model. The problem is solved iteratively to obtain the heat transfer coefficients. This method has been applied to evaluate the uneven phase distribution of an air–water mixture in a compact heat exchanger. The exchanger is composed of seven multiport flat tubes, a vertical downward header and horizontal channels. Experiments were performed for mass flux from 29 kg m−2 s−1 to 116 kg m−2 s−1 and for quality from 0.10 to 0.70.