Critical Heat Flux in Horizontal Tube Bundles in Vertical Crossflow of R113

The critical heat flux (CHF) on a single tube in a horizontal bundle subject to an upward crossflow of R113 has been studied in three bundle geometries. Effects of local quality, mass flux, pressure, and bundle geometry on the CHF were investigated. The shapes of the CHF-quality curves display three distinct patterns, which progress from one to another as mass flux increases. At low mass fluxes, the CHF data monotonically decreased with increasing quality. At intermediate mass fluxes with increasing quality, the CHF data initially decreased to a relative minimum, then increased to a relative maximum, and finally began to decrease again as the higher qualities were reached. At high mass fluxes, as quality increased, the CHF rose gradually from the zero quality value to a maximum and then began to decrease. For all mass fluxes, the zero-quality CHF points clustered around an average value, which varied slightly with test section geometry. Mechanisms for the CHF condition are suggested.