EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE COOLING WITH AN EVAPORATING ANNULAR FLOW IN A SMALL VERTICAL TUBE

An experimental study was performed to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of the non-boiling annular two-phase flow of nitrogen gas and subcooled water through a small vertical heated tube with uniform wall heat flux. The experimental results were compared with the numerical calculations based on the two-phase flow boundary layer model. The experimental data show that the annular two-phase flow of nitrogen gas and subcooled water in a small vertical tube can provide quite high heat transfer ability, while wall temperatures lie in a low range even if at quite high wall heat fluxes. In particular, the highest values of the wall temperatures are insensitive to the change of flowing and heating conditions. This characteristic is quite suitable for highly effective cooling of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells.