Flow boiling and frictional pressure gradients in plate heat exchangers. Part 2: Comparison of literature methods to database and new prediction methods

• Sensitivity analysis on the main plate heat exchanger geometrical parameters.
• Comparison among several two-phase correlations and discussion of the main trends.
• Twenty-nine literature prediction methods statistically validated against a wide database.
• Dimensional analysis and regression technique to develop general correlations.
• Simulation of the new models against independent experimental database.

In the second part of this study a sensitivity analysis on the prediction methods is performed to consider the effect of plate geometry on thermal–hydraulic performance and an extensive comparison of all the two-phase pressure drop and flow boiling heat transfer prediction methods available in the open literature are also provided versus the large diversified database presented in Part 1. The experimental databank, from numerous independent research studies, is then utilized to develop the new prediction methods to evaluate local heat transfer coefficients and pressure drops. These new methods were developed from 1903 heat transfer and 1513 frictional pressure drop data points (3416 total), respectively, and were proved to work better over a very wide range of operating conditions, plate designs and fluids (including ammonia). The prediction for flow boiling heat transfer coefficients was broken down into separate macro- and micro-scale methods.