HFC-410A vaporisation inside a commercial brazed plate heat exchanger

This paper experimentally investigates HFC-410A vaporisation inside a commercial brazed plate heat exchanger: the effects of heat flux, refrigerant mass flux, saturation temperature and outlet conditions are evaluated. The experimental results are reported in terms of refrigerant side heat transfer coefficients and frictional pressure drop. The heat transfer coefficients show great sensitivity to heat flux and outlet conditions and weak sensitivity to saturation temperature. The frictional pressure drop shows a linear dependence on the kinetic energy per unit volume of the refrigerant flow and therefore a quadratic dependence on the refrigerant mass flux. The experimental heat transfer coefficients are compared with two well-known equations [Cooper, M.G., Heat flows rates in saturated pool boiling – a wide ranging examination using reduced properties, in: J.P. Hartnett, T.F. Irvine Jr. (Eds.), Advanced in Heat Transfer, Academic Press, Orlando, FL, 1984, pp. 157–239; D. Gorenflo, D. Pool boiling, in: E.U. Schlu¨nder (Ed.), VDI Heat Atlas, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1993 (Ha1-25).] for nucleate boiling and a correlation for frictional pressure drop is proposed.