Boiling Heat Transfer of Carbon Dioxide in Horizontal Tubes

In this study, boiling heat transfer coefficients of carbon dioxide in horizontally located smooth tubes were experimentally investigated. The inner diameter of heat transfer tubes was 1, 2, 4, and 6 mm. Experiments were conducted at evaporating temperature of 5 and 15 °C, heat fluxes from 4.5 to 36 kW/m², and mass fluxes from 360 to 1440 kg/m²s. The heat transfer coefficients in the pre-dryout region and post-dryout region were investigated, as well as the dryout quality. Due to the small viscosity and surface tension of CO₂, the dryout occurs at a small quality from 0.4 to 0.7. The inception quality decreases with the increase of mass flux, and is affected by the heat flux and tube diameter; the effects of heat flux on the heat transfer coefficient are much significant in the pre-dryout region, which is related with the activation of nucleate boiling. On the contrary, the effects of mass flux are relatively low due to the low two-phase density ratio near the critical point. In addition, this tendency becomes more significant when the small tube is tested; In the post-dryout region, mass velocity is the dominating factor on heat transfer coefficient. At small mass flux, the heat transfer coefficient decreases with the increase of quality, while at large mass flux such as 1440kg/m²s, the heat transfer coefficient turns to increasing with the quality. By increasing the evaporating temperature, the pre-dryout heat transfer coefficient increases, while the dryout inception quality and post-dryout heat transfer coefficient are not affected greatly by the evaporating temperature.