Le Royal Hotel Amman, Jordan

November, 10-12 2009

International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

COOLING OF SUPERHEATED REFRIGERANTS FLOWING

INSIDE MINI AND MICRO TUBES STUDY OF HEAT
TRANSFER AND PRESSURE DROP, CO2 CASE STUDY.
PAPER II
M. HAMMAD (a), A. ALSHQIRATE (b)
University of Jordan, hammad@ju.edu.jo
(a)

(b)
Al-Balqa' Applied University, Alshoubak University College
Abedalrzaq_alshqirate@yahoo.com

Abstract
Superheated Carbon dioxide gas was subjected to a cooling process. Experimental investigation along with an analytical
study was carried out in this work. This work is intended to be part of the super critical Gustav Lorentzen refrigeration cycle
of CO2. Experimental and analytical works concentrated on heat transfer and pressure drop for single phase flow during gas
cooling inside mini and micro tubes. Empirical correlations were formulated analytically for the coefficient of convectional
heat transfer and for the pressure drop in the following forms:
Nu = 0.24 (Re D) 0.53 (Pr) 0.43
And Eu = 1.1*10-4 (ReD) -0.26 (L/D) 1.06
Correlations were validated against some experimental results and compared to all experimental results and other literature
correlations; more than 90% degree of agreement was noticed. This work can enhance the calculations of heat flux and
pressure drop of gases flow inside mini and micro tubes. It can also help in the design procedure of heat exchangers and
cooling processes.
© 2009 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries All rights reserved

Table 1 shows correlations for heat transfer Nu and

* pressure drop friction factor, f during flow inside tubes.
1. Introduction
These are just examples of the published literature, with all
Heat transfer and fluid flow inside tubes have many variables involved presented. These studies show an
applications. Heat exchangers, condensers, evaporators acceptable agreement between experimental values of the
and boilers are examples of these applications. Literature heat transfer coefficient and those calculated using the
shows many recent studies of heat transfer for single phase correlations predicted.
flow inside tube.
Equations and correlations were formulated and validated
by experimental works. Different correlations are now in
use to calculate the heat transfer coefficients and pressure
drop. These correlations can be found in all books and
papers of heat transfer, for example, Bejan, (1993),
Incropera et al, (2007), Gopenath, et al, (2002) and Liao, et
al, (2002).
The experimental and analytic alstudies in this work
covered a domain of independent parameters as follows:
1- Tube inner tube diameter ranged from 0.6 mm up to
1.6 mm.
2- Reynolds number ranged from 3000 up to 15,000.0
3- Mass rate of flow ranged from 2.5 *10-5kg/s up to 17
* 10 -5 kg/s.
4- Pressure ranged from 30 bars up to 50 bars.
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

Table 1: Literature correlation formulae for single phase flow

inside tubes

2. EXPERIMENTAL
Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the used test set.
Cooling and condensation occurred inside a chest freezer
with lowest possible air temperature of -28o C. The Data
Acquisition System (DAS) of model SCX14, made by
National Instruments was used with LAB VIW soft ware
for processing. Visual and printed reports are the output of
the experiment. Fifteen temperature readings were sensed
by K – type thermocouples and fed to the DAS
simultaneously.
Thermocouples and fed to the DAS simultaneously. The
pressure was read in three points at steady state conditions
and they were: before cooling, and after condensation
Volumetric rate of flow in m3/s was read at the end outlet
flow by a gas flow meter calibrated for CO2 at room
temperature and local pressure conditions

1.Carbon dioxide gas cylinder, 2-Regulating valve, 3- Chest freezer, 4- Condenser, 5- Cut off valve, (4 units), 6-
Pressure gauges, (3 units), 7- Sight glass, (2 units), 8- Evaporator, 9- Data Acquisition System, (DAS), 10- Volume flow
meter.
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

Chest Freezer

Flow direction of 6
CO2 Condenser
CO2
Evaporator
8

7 5

Thermocouples

Printer Computer Data Acquisition System

DAS

QCO2 = ho Ao Tlmo (1)

Figure1: schematic diagram of the experimental unit
2.1. Heat Transfer
The mean experimental heat transfer coefficients, (h¯ exp)
were calculated as follows:
The tube outside surface temperatures at 15 points along
the whole test sections (about 15 m), were measured by
means of K-type thermocouples fixed on the outer surface
at longitudinal locations. These temperatures were
tabulated along with the test section length. Two pressure
values and the volumetric rate of flow were tabulated also.
Different experiments were carried out changing
independent variables: the pipe diameter, D, (three
different values), the test section inlet pressure, Pin, (four
different values), and the rate of flow, v, (four different
values).
Figure 2 shows the pipe longitudinal distribution of the
outer surface temperatures of a typical cooling experiment.
The figure shows a gas cooling part and a condensation
part. The two lines are with different slopes.
The total length of the cooling and condensation portion
was about 15 meters. This study is concerned only with the
first line which shows the process of cooling only and of
1.9 meters.
For the cooling part of the pipe, the relation is shown to be
nearly linear between the temperature and the pipe
longitudinal distance. Condition of constant heat flux can
be assumed.
Heat balance for the heat transfer inside the chest freezer
will be as heat released by the gas while cooling by radial
heat flux. Convection and conduction heat transfer will be
considered as follows:
QCO2 = Cp (T1/ – T2/) (2)
QCO2 = hi Ai Tlmi (3)
Where the outer logarithmic mean temperature difference
equals:
Tlmo = [(T1–Ta) - (T2 – Ta)] / ln [(T1-Ta) / (T2- Ta)]
(4)
And the inner logarithmic mean temperature difference
equals:
Tlmi = [(T1/–T1) - (T2/ – T2)] / ln [(T1/-T1) / (T2/- T2)]
(5)
Where T1 and T2 are the first and last temperatures of the
wall outside surface, T1/ and T2/ are the gas inlet and outlet
mean temperatures and Ta is the deep freezer air
temperature.
Where also, Ao and Ai are the outer surface tube area and
the inner surface tube area respectively.
The ho and the hi are the outer heat transfer coefficient and
the inner respectively.
Equation 1 will be used to calculate the heat quantity using
Churchill and Chue formula to calculate ho, the formula is,
( Incopera, et al, 2007):
NuD={0.60+((0.387RaD1/6)/[1+(0.559/Pr)9/16]8/27)2
(6)
Equation 2 will be used to calculate the mean gas flow
temperature at inlet, (T1/) as the gas temperature at exit is
known to equal saturation temperature at that pressure.
Then equation 3 will be used to calculate the mean heat
transfer coefficient of CO2 at the inner
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

25
Status: Micropipe inlet diameter 0.6 mm Process:
20 Cooling
Test inlet pressure: 3600 kPa
15 Mass flow rate: 0.6* 10-5 kg/s

10
Temperature (oC)

0
0 5 10 15
-5
Length (m)
-10

-15

Figure 2: Tube outside wall surface temperatures measured points

in oC versus test section length during cooling and condensation
process.
This will be the experimental heat transfer coefficient, (h
exp.) for cooling gaseous CO2. This was calculated and
tabulated in Table1.
2.2. Pressure Drop
To determine the pressure drop, it is convenient to work
with the Moody (or Darcy) friction factor, which is a
dimensionless Parameter defined as: (Incropera, 2007):
− (dP / dx) Di
f= (7)
ρu m2 / 2
Where f is the friction factor, which can be either extracted
from Moodies chart, or calculated using Petukhov equation
as: (Incropera, 2007).
f = (0.790 ln ReD – 1.64)-2 3000< ReD < 5*106 (for
turbulent flow) (8)
The length of the cooling region (Lg) was 1.9 meters as
mentioned before.
Table 2: The friction factor of the vapor region and the
pressure drop for the cooling tube length as extracted from
Moodies chart
In Table 2 the pressure drop, Pg is calculated using equation 8
mentioned before. This will be used later as experimental pressure
drop values, Pg exp.
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

3. ANALYTICAL WORK
3.1. Convection Heat Transfer
Table 3 shows the Reynolds numbers, (ReD) of this work
domain are higher than 3000, Turbulent flow can be
assumed and Colburn equation can be used as basic
equation to calculate the convectional heat transfer
coefficient. Colburn basic equation is in the form of:
Incropera, etal, 2007.
NuD = C ReDM Prn (9)
Where C is a constant, m and n are exponent constants.

Table 3: Carbon dioxide velocity and Reynolds number of cooling

vapor.

Over the range of the ReD and Pr values considered within Analytical work manipulating equation 11 with non
this work domain, the values of the constants were dimensional terms revealed the following correlation in the
evaluated to be as shown in Table 4. form:
Eu = ƒ(ReD, L/D) (12)
Table 4: Correlation constants values. And this may be written as:
Eu = C ReDm (L/D) n (13)
The constants C, m and n can be calculated by using three
Constant Constants value points of the experimental result. The values are shown in
C 0.24 Table 5.
m 0.53 Table 5: Correlation, (equation 13) constant values.
n 0.43
The correlation for heat transfer relation between NuD, ReD,
and Pr for CO2 cooling super heated gas will be in the Constant Constants value
form: C 1.1* 10-4
NuD = 0.24 ReD0.53 Pr 0.43 (10)
3.2. Pressure Drop
m - 0.26
All references in the literature deal with pressure drop ( P) n 1.06
for inside tube gas flow as function of many variables
shown in the following equation:
P = ƒ( ReD, V, L, D, ) (11)
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

he pressure drop correlation for CO2 can put in the form:

Eu = 1.1 * 10-4 (ReD)-0.26 (L/D) 1.06 (14)

4. RESULTS DISCUSION
1-Figures 3and 4 show comparisons between the
experimental and correlation results of heat transfer
coefficient, h in and Nusselt number, Nu.
2-It is clear from both figures and for both h and Nu the
values of this work correlation agrees with both the
experimental results and those calculated using literature
correlation of Colburn, Icropera etal,2007. The agreement
reaches around 0.94 with the experimental results and
around 0.9 with Colburn results.

h corr. of this work

h Colburn
1000
h corr. = 1.0061 h exp.
800 h Col. = 1.0496 h exp.
h (W/m^2.K)

600

400

200

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
h exp. (W/m^2.K)
Figure 3:
Experimental heat transfer coefficient Vs two correlation
calculated values
a) Using Colburn equation, b) Using this work correlation.

Nu corr. of this work

Nu Colburn
50
Nu corr = 1.0652 Nu exp.
40 Nu Col = 1.1742 Nu exp.

30
Nu

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Nu exp.

Figure 4: Experimental heat transfer coefficient Vs two

correlation calculated values
a) Using Colburn equation, b) Using this work correlation.
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

4-Figures 5 and 6 represent comparisons between the

pressure drops, P and the Euler numbers, Eu.
5-It is clear from both figures and for both P and Eu that
the values of this work correlation agrees with both the
experimental results and those calculated using literature
correlation (Petukhovs correlation) exceeds 95% in most
cases.

Pcorr. of this work

P Petukhov
16
P corr. = 0.9239 P exp.
P Pet. = 0.9106 P exp. .
12
P (k Pa)

0
0 4 8 12 16
P exp. (k Pa)

Figure 5: Experimental pressure drop, P exp.Vs two correlation

calculated values
a) Using Petukhovs equation, b) Using this work correlation

Eu corr. of this work

Eu Petukhov
8
Eu corr. = 0.9718 Eu exp.
Eu Pet. = 0.9433 Eu exp.
6
Eu *(10^-2)

0
0 2 4 6 8
Eu *(10^-2)

Figure 7: Experimental Euler number, Eu exp.Vs two correlation

calculated values
a) Using Petukhovs equation, b) Using this work correlation.
 International Conference and Exhibition on Green Energy & Sustainability for Arid Regions & Mediterranean Countries

5. CONCLUSIONS
Table 6 shows the resulting correlations for calculating
heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop for single phase
flow inside mini and micro tubes.

Table 6: The resulted correlations.

NUMENCLATURE
Eu Euler Number, ( P/ V2)
ReD Reynolds Number,( VD/µ)
L/D length/diameter for tubes.
Pr. Prandtl number, (Cp µ/K)
Ra D Ralighs number, ( g T D3/ )
T Temperature, K or oC.
P Pressure, kPa.
m Mass flow rate, kg/s
h heat transfer coefficient, kJ/m2K
Latin:
delta
density, kg/m3
µ dynamic viscosity, m.s

Superscripts
m,n exponents constants

Subscripts
lmtd log. mean temp. differ.
i inner
o outer

REFERENCES

1. Bejan, A., 1993, “ Heat transfer” J. Wiley.

2. Incropera F., Dewitt D., Bergman, T and Lavine, A. (2007),
Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer”, 6th. Edition,J.
Wiley.
3. Gopinath, R. Vijay, K. and Leslie, M., 2002”Heat transfer and
pressure drop in narrow rectangular channels” J.
experimental thermal and fluid science. 26, 53-64.
4. Liao, S.M. and Zhao, T.S. (2002). An experimental
investigation of convection heat transfer to supercritical
carbon dioxide in miniature tubes. International Journal of
Heat and Mass Transfer, 45, 5025–5034.

Acknoeledgement: The authors would like to thank the

University of Jordan. For the support in this working.