Modeling and Prediction of Two-Phase Refrigerant Flow Regimes and Heat Transfer Characteristics in Microgap Channels

This keynote lecture will open with a brief review of the primary two-phase flow regimes and their impact on thermal transport phenomena in tubes and channels. The Taitel and Dukler flow regime mapping methodology will then be described and applied to the two-phase flow of refrigerants and dielectric liquids in microgap channels. The effects of channel diameter, as well as alternative transition criteria, on the prevailing flow regimes in microgaps will be explored along with available criteria for microchannel behavior. Available microgap data will then be shown to reflect the dominance of annular flow and to display a characteristic heat transfer coefficient curve in such configurations. It is found that the heat transfer coefficients in the low-quality annular flow segment of this locus can be predicted by available, microtube correlations, but that the moderate-quality transition to the axially-decreasing segment occurs at substantially.