The Visualization of Flow Boiling in a Uniformly Heated Micro Capillary Tube

This work presents experiments on the visualization of flow boiling of water in a horizontally placed and uniformly heated micro capillary tube. Three micro capillary tubes of quartz glass with inner diameters of 520, 315 and 242 μm are prepared. Experiments are performed with deionized water over a mass flux range from 39.3 to 362.5kg/m²s, and the inlet temperatures of 30, 45, and 60 °C respectively. By a video system with microscope and high-speed camera, the vapor-water two-phase flow’s patterns are recorded and analyzed. It has been found that periodic change of two-phase flow patterns and dramatic fluctuations of pressure drop occur in the micro capillary tubes. A new arch flow pattern, liquid film evaporating, and liquid droplet have been observed firstly. Bubbly flow has not been observed during our visual experiments for the inner diameter of 242 μm, the flow patterns are only made up of single liquid phase flow and two-phase elongate slug flow. The main flow regimes in these micro-tubes are single-liquid flow, slug flow, and annular flow with liquid film surrounded in the micro-tube with inner diameter of 520 and 315μm. Trends of pressure drop and flow patterns’ transition are compared and the results show that the increasing process of pressure drop is approximately in the single-liquid flow and bubbly flow, while the decreasing process of pressure drop is in the state of annular flow.