Two-phase refrigerant distribution in a two row/four pass parallel flow minichannel heat exchanger

•R-410A distribution was investigated for two row/four pass configuration.•Flow distribution at the inlet header generally follows the well-known trend.•At the intermediate header, flow distribution depends on the direction of the tubes.•Thermal degradation is larger for top row-crossing header configuration than for bottom row-crossing header configuration.•Correlations are developed to predict the fraction of liquid or gas taken off by downstream channel as a function of header gas Reynolds number.