Boiling pressure drop and local heat transfer distribution of water in horizontal straight tubes at low pressure

Experiments are performed with eight test sections made of thin walled stainless steel (SS 304) tubes having inner diameters from 5.5 mm to 12 mm and length varying from 550 mm to 1000 mm. The system pressure is varying form 1 bar to 3 bar. No change in slope of heat transfer curve is found for subcooled regions. Heat transfer in all the three regions of subcooled boiling namely partial subcooled boiling, fully developed subcooled and net vapour generation are predicted by a single correlation. Tube diameter has no effect on boiling heat transfer distribution. However, tube diameter affects two phase pressure drop. Increase in mass flux increases the convective heat transfer coefficient. However, mass flux has no influence on subcooled and nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficient. Heat flux increases the boiling heat transfer coefficient. Increase in tube diameter and mass flux decreases the two-phase pressure drop. Most of all the correlations in the subcooled region predict heat transfer coefficient with reasonable accuracy. Kandlikar and Shah correlations perform well in the low pressure saturated boiling i.e. nucleate and convective. None of the available two-phase pressure drop correlations are able to predict the pressure drop in a low pressure system. A correlation is developed to predict two-phase pressure drop in low pressure flow boiling system with a reasonably good accuracy.