Numerical simulation of flow patterns and the effect on heat flux during R32 condensation in microtube

Based on the fluid volume approach, a transient numerical model for the condensation heat transfer and flow features in a microchannel is proposed. The flow condensation of R32 in a circular microtube with 0.1 mm diameter was studied. Four typical flow patterns, annular, injection flow, slug flow and bubbly flow are simulated along a two-dimension calculational domain successively. The numerical mode is verified by the experiments from the literature. The numerical results discern that the increase of mass flux, wall temperature and saturation temperature affect the detachment point of vapor slug further toward the outlet with higher occurrence frequency, which can be attributed to the higher Weber number and Capillary number of tail vapor core respectively. The local heat flux and wall shear stress will decrease along the flow direction overall, and tend to be constant in the single phase liquid area. However, there exit some rebounds and oscillations of the local heat flux and wall shear stress during injection and slug flow. The transient oscillations of wall shear stress can induce fluctuations and even waves in the annular flow upstream, which can be concluded as “surface tension force affecting upstream”, is proposed based on the minimum potential energy theory. This mechanism could be a supplement for the traditional theory of “flow pattern transition at high mass flux being induced by fluctuations which grow up while flowing downstream”.