A way to reduce pressure drop in once-through micro-evaporators
article
This investigation explores the possibilities to reduce the pressure drop of a single-channel micro-evaporator. The availability of micro-technology to create three-dimensional structures at a micro-meter scale opens opportunities to better control process conditions in once-through boilers. However, process miniaturization possesses some inherent drawbacks as well. Among others, the relatively large pressure drop in a micro-system makes it rather unsuitable for low-pressure applications. Especially in phase-change processes, the pressure drop may become large due to the expansion in small-sized channels. To address this drawback, flow boiling relations for small diameter tubes are first studied. These relations show a general form of the empirical correlations. Using this formulation, reduction factors could be deduced for the momentum pressure drop and friction pressure drop in case of a conical channel. These theoretically derived reduction factors show that the total pressure drop can be reduced significantly. The momentum pressure drop completely vanishes for outflow/inlet diameter ratios of 6.3 in the case of water. The friction pressure drop is reduced by a factor of ten at an outflow/inlet diameter ratio larger than four. An experimental comparison using a five-times diameter increase shows that the estimated reduction factor approaches the theoretically derived value for higher water supplies. cop. 2014 cop. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
TNO Identifier
500231
ISSN
15210480
Source
Experimental Heat Transfer, 27(4), pp. 329-339.
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Inc.
Pages
329-339
Files
To receive the publication files, please send an e-mail request to TNO Repository.