Nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficients of HFO1234yf on various enhanced surfaces

•World's first time measured data for environmentally friendly refrigerant of HFO1234yf.•Useful data for commercially used surfaces of Turbo-B, Turbo-C, and Thermoexcel.•High efficiency evaporator design data.•Long term solution for air-conditioning and heat pumping.

In this study, nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) of HFO1234yf HFC134a are measured on a flat plain, Turbo-B, Turbo-C, and Thermoexcel-E surfaces. All data are taken at the liquid pool temperature of 7 °C on small flat horizontal square copper plates (9.53 mm × 9.53 mm) at heat fluxes from 10 kW m−2 to 200 kW m−2 with an interval of 10 kW m−2. Test results show that nucleate boiling HTCs of HFO1234yf on all four surfaces are similar to those of HFC134a at all heat fluxes tested in this study. At heat fluxes below 150 kW m−2, Thermoexcel-E surface shows the highest heat transfer performance and hence is the best surface for the manufacture of the evaporators in refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. On the other hand, at high heat fluxes above 150 kW m−2, Turbo-B and Turbo-C show better heat transfer performance than Thermoexcel-E and hence are good for electronic cooling applications. Overall, HFO1234yf is a good long term candidate with excellent environmental properties to replace successfully HFC134a from the view point of pool boiling heat transfer. Hence HFO1234yf can be readily applied to the conventional evaporators designed for HFC134a.