Transient boiling flow instabilities in a multi-channel upflow system

In this study, the transient boiling flow instabilities in a four parallel channel upflow system with and without cross-connections have been experimentally investigated using Freon-11 as the test fluid. Several series of transient experiments have been run using a step increase in power input with a constant flow control valve setting and a step decrease in flow rate with a constant heat input. Two major modes of oscillations, namely density-wave type and pressure-drop type oscillations, have been observed. Total system pressure drop has been plotted as a function of mass flow rate for various heat inputs and flow control valve settings, and the stable and unstable regions for transient density-wave type and pressure-drop type oscillations have been determined and the boundaries of sustained instabilities have also been indicated. Experiments have been conducted with equal and unequal heat inputs and the results have been compared with each other. A comparison of the transient instabilities observed in four parallel channel system with and without cross connections has also been made.     

An experimental investigation of thermally induced flow instabilities in a convective boiling upflow system

The two-phase flow instabilities in a single channel, forced convection, open loop, up-flow system have been investigated experimentally using R-11 as the working fluid. The effects of mass flow rate, heat input, inlet liquid temperature and upstream compressible volume on two-phase flow instabilities have been investigated. Two heater surfaces were tested at five different heat inputs with constant inlet temperature, and four different inlet temperatures with constant heat input. For each case, the mass flow rate was varied over a wide range covering the entire scope for boiling two-phase flows. Experiments were also conducted at different compressible volumes, with constant heat input, inlet fluid temperature, and average mass flow rate. The oscillations of inlet mass flow rate, heater inlet pressure, and heater wall temperature were recorded. The effects of mass flow rate, inlet liquid temperature and heat input on the amplitudes and periods of inlet pressure and thermal oscillations are presented in tabular and graphical forms.

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Experimentelle Untersuchung der thermisch bedingten Strömungsinstabilitäten bei konvektiven Sieden in einer Aufwärtsströmung

Zusammenfassung Mit R-11 als Arbeitsfluid werden Zweiphasen-Strömungsinstabilitäten im Einzelkanal bei erzwungener Aufwärtsströmung ohne Rückführung experimentell untersucht, und zwar besonders im Hinblick auf den Einfluß der Massenstromdichte, der Wärmezufuhr, der Eintrittstemperatur und des in Strömungsrichtung zunehmenden kompressiblen Volumenanteils. Zwei Heizflächen wurden einmal mit fünf verschiedenen Heizflächenbelastungen und konstanter Eintrittstemperatur getestet und dann bei vier verschiedenen Wärmeeinträgen und konstanter Eintrittstemperatur. In jedem der Fälle erfolgte die Variation der Massenstromdichte in einem so weiten Bereich, daß das gesamte Feld der Zweiphasen-Siedeströmungen durchfahren werden konnte. Es wurden auch Experimente mit verschiedenen kompressiblen Volumenanteilen bei konstanter Wärmezufuhr, Fluideintrittstemperatur und mittlerer Massenstromdichte durchgeführt. Die Oszillationen der Massenstromdichte und des Druckes am Eintritt in die Heizstrecke sowie deren Wandtemperatur wurden aufgezeichnet. Die Enflüsse der Massenstromdichte, der Fluideintrittstemperatur und der Wärmezufuhr auf Amplituden und Perioden der Druck- und Temperaturoszillationen sind tabellarisch und in Diagrammform dargestellt.

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Dedicated to Prof. Dr.-Ing. F. Mayinger's 60th birthday     

Theoretical analysis of pressure-drop type instabilities in an upflow boiling system with an exit restriction

 In this work, two-phase flow pressure-drop type instabilities in an upflow boiling system are studied theoretically. Dynamic simulations of the pressure-drop type instabilities require the knowledge of the steady state characteristics of the system in terms of the pressure drop versus the mass flow rate. In a boiling system with an exit restriction at the outlet of the boiling channel, the pressure drop through the system concentrates at the exit restriction. Therefore, the correlation of the pressure drop of the two-phase mixture flowing through the exit restriction (i.e. a sharp-edged orifice) is essential in the calculation of the total pressure drop of the system. A model for the exit restriction is developed and compared with the experimental results covering a wide range of vapor quality with different heat inputs and inlet subcoolings. The drift-flux model is adopted to predict the steady state characteristics of the boiling system. The dynamic oscillations of the quasi-static pressure-drop type instabilities in the boiling system are simulated and good predictions of the system stability boundary and oscillatory characteristics are obtained when compared with the experimental results. Received on 4 May 2000     

Two-phase flow instabilities in a horizontal single boiling channel

A study of the stability of an electrically heated single channel, forced convection horizontal system was conducted by using Freon-11 as the test fluid. Two major modes of oscillations, namely, density-wave type (high frequency) and pressure-drop type (low frequency) oscillations have been observed. The steady-state operating characteristics and stable and unstable regions are determined as a function of heat flux, exit orifice diameter and mass flow rate. Different modes of oscillations and their characteristics have been investigated. The effect of the exit restriction on the system stability has also been studied.A mathematical model has been developed to predict the transient behavior of boiling two-phase systems. The model is based on homogenous flow assumption and thermodynamic equilibrium between the liquid and vapor phases. The transient characteristics of boiling two-phase flow horizontal system are obtained for various heat inputs, flow rates and exit orifice diameters by perturbing the governing equations around a steady state. Theoretical and experimental results have been compared.     

Dynamic instabilities of boiling two-phase flow in a single horizontal channel

Dynamic instabilities of two-phase flow associated with refrigerant R-11 in a uniformly heated horizontal in-tube boiling system were experimentally investigated. An experimental setup was designed and built to work in a wide range of mass fluxes G [75–1050 kg/(m² s)], heat fluxes q (0–100 kW/m²), and fluid inlet temperatures T_inlet (2–24°C). Dynamic instability data were obtained under various working conditions. The dependence of oscillation amplitude and period on system parameters is discussed, and the boundaries of various oscillations are located on the steady-state characteristic curves.     

Effect of heat transfer augmentation on two-phase flow instabilities in a vertical boiling channel

The effect of different heater surface configurations on two-phase flow instabilities has been investigated in a single channel, forced convection, open loop, up-flow system. Freon-11 is used as the test fluid, and six different heater tubes with various inside surface configurations have been tested at five different heat inputs. In addition to temperature and pressure recordings, high speed motion pictures of the two-phase flow were taken for some of the experiments to study the two-phase flow behavior at different operating points. Experimental results are shown on system pressure drop versus mass flow rate curves, and stability boundaries are also indicated on these curves. Comparison of different heater tubes is made by the use of the stability boundary maps and the plots of inlet throttling necessary to stabilize the system versus mass flow rate. Tubes with internal springs were found to be more stable than the other tubes.     

The effect of internal surface modification on flow instabilities in forced convection boiling in a horizontal tube

This paper presents the experimental result of a study on the effects of heat transfer enhancement on two-phase flow instabilities in a horizontal in-tube flow boiling system. Five different heat transfer surface configurations and five different inlet temperatures are used to observe the effect of heat transfer enhancement and inlet subcooling. All experiments are carried out at constant heat input, system pressure and exit restriction. Dynamic instabilities, namely pressure-drop type, density-wave type and thermal oscillations are found to occur for all the investigated temperatures and enhancement configurations, and the boundaries for the appearance of these oscillations are found. The effect of the enhancement configurations on the characteristics of the boiling flow dynamic instabilities is studied in detail. The comparison between the bare tube and the enhanced tube configurations are made on the basis of boiling flow instabilities. Differences among the enhanced configurations are also determined to observe which of them is the most stable and unstable one. The amplitudes and periods of pressure-drop type oscillations and density-wave type oscillations for tubes with enhanced surfaces are found to be higher than those of the bare tube. The bare tube is found to be the most stable configuration, while tube with internal springs having bigger pitch is found to be the most unstable one among the tested tubes. It is found that system stability increases with decreasing equivalent diameter for the same type heater tube configurations; however, on the basis of effective diameter there is no single result such as stability increase/decrease with increasing/decreasing effective diameter.     

Effect of Lorentz forces on forced-convection nanofluid flow over a stretched surface

Magnetic nanofluid hydrothermal analysis over a plate is studied that includes consideration of thermal radiation. The Runge–Kutta (RK4) method is utilized to get solution of ODEs which are obtained from similarity solution. In considering the impacts of Brownian motion, we applied Koo–Kleinstreuer–Li correlation to simulate the properties of CuO–water. The influence is discussed of important parameters such as the temperature index, magnetic, radiation, and velocity ratio parameters and volume fraction of nanoparticle on hydrothermal behavior. Results illustrate that the coefficient of skin friction enhances with enhancing magnetic parameter while reduces with enhancing velocity ratio parameter. Also the Nusselt number was found to directly depend on the velocity ratio and temperature index parameters but has an inverse dependence on the magnetic and radiation parameters.     

Experimental study on nucleate boiling of water in vertical upflow and downflow

An experimental study on nucleate boiling of water was carried out using an annular vertical channel both in upflow and downflow. Heat transfer data are given in different conditions of subcooling and fluid velocity. Photographs show different behaviour of heat transfer mechanism.     

Longitudinal instabilities in exit flow from a slit

Summary Longitudinal instabilities in exit flow from a slit have been analysed. A theory which shows them to be of surface tension origin has been proposed. It predicts an increase in critical wave length with increasing surface tension, decreasing viscosity, and increasing slit opening. This effect is shown experimentally to be observable in the flow of Newtonian fluids besides the observations in viscoelastic fluids reported previously.The theory predicts that these longitudinal instabilities will not be observed if the Ohnesorge number based on half slit widtha is less than 0.945. Also, the observed disturbances will have wave lengths corresponding to wave numbers less than 1.91/a.

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Zusammenfassung Es werden longitudinale Instabilitäten beim Ausströmen aus einem Parallelspalt analysiert. Dabei wird eine Theorie in Ansatz gebracht, welche diese auf die Oberflächenspannung zurückführt. Sie sagt ein Größerwerden der kritischen Wellenlänge mit wachsender Oberflächenspannung, abnehmender Viskosität und zunehmender Spaltweite voraus. Es wird gezeigt, daß dieser Effekt nicht nur, wie früher schon berichtet, in viskoelastischen, sondern auch in newtonschen Flüssigkeiten beobachtet werden kann.Die Theorie sagt weiter voraus, daß derartige longitudinale Instabilitäten nicht beobachtet werden können, solange die mit der halben Spaltweitea gebildete Ohnesorge-Zahl kleiner als 0.945 ausfällt. Schließlich folgt noch, daß die beobachteten Störungen Wellenlängen besitzen, die kleiner als 1,91/a sind.

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With 7 figures     

Two-phase flow instabilities in a silicon microchannels heat sink

Two-phase flow instabilities are highly undesirable in microchannels-based heat sinks as they can lead to temperature oscillations with high amplitudes, premature critical heat flux and mechanical vibrations. This work is an experimental study of boiling instabilities in a microchannel silicon heat sink with 40 parallel rectangular microchannels, having a length of 15 mm and a hydraulic diameter of 194 μm. A series of experiments have been carried out to investigate pressure and temperature oscillations during the flow boiling instabilities under uniform heating, using water as a cooling liquid. Thin nickel film thermometers, integrated on the back side of a heat sink with microchannels, were used in order to obtain a better insight related to temperature fluctuations caused by two-phase flow instabilities. Flow regime maps are presented for two inlet water temperatures, showing stable and unstable flow regimes. It was observed that boiling leads to asymmetrical flow distribution within microchannels that result in high temperature non-uniformity and the simultaneously existence of different flow regimes along the transverse direction. Two types of two-phase flow instabilities with appreciable pressure and temperature fluctuations were observed, that depended on the heat to mass flux ratio and inlet water temperature. These were high amplitude/low frequency and low amplitude/high frequency instabilities. High speed camera imaging, performed simultaneously with pressure and temperature measurements, showed that inlet/outlet pressure and the temperature fluctuations existed due to alternation between liquid/two-phase/vapour flows. It was also determined that the inlet water subcooling condition affects the magnitudes of the temperature oscillations in two-phase flow instabilities and flow distribution within the microchannels.     

Transient mixed convection flow instabilities in a vertical pipe

The present paper investigates a numerical study of flow instabilities in transient mixed convection in a vertical pipe. At the entrance of the pipe, the flow is suddenly submitted to a temperature step. The convection heat transfer on the outer surface of the pipe is taken into account. The governing equations are solved using a finite difference explicit scheme. The numerical results show that the time development of streamlines and isotherms is strongly dependent on the inlet temperature steps. For positive temperature steps, the unsteady vortex is significant in the vicinity of the wall and the reversal flow appears below the wave instability. In the case of negative temperature steps and especially for the low Reynolds number, the reversal flow appears on top of the wave instability. During the transient, the apparition of the vortical structures along the wall leads to the wall boundary layer instability. This phenomenon is due to the transient mixed convection flows. The temperature step effects on the heat transfer of the flow are presented in our paper.     

Visualisation of flow boiling heat transfer in a microtube

This paper presents the results of the flow boiling patterns and heat transfer coefficients of FC-72 in a small tube. The internal diameter of the tube is 0.48 mm, with a heated length of 73 mm. The mass flow rate varies from 50 to 3,000 kg/m²-s. The microtube is made of Pyrex in order to obtain the visualisation of the flow pattern along the heated channel. Different types of flow pattern have been observed: bubbly flow, deformed bubbly flow, bubbly/slug flow, slug flow, slug/annular flow, and annular flow. The experiments show the presence of flow instabilities in a large portion of the tests at low mass flow rates and low subcooling. Flow patterns in presence of flow instabilities are mainly characterized by bubbly/slug flow and slug/annular flow. Heat transfer rates have been studied in all flow pattern conditions. The two groups of results, with flow instabilities and without flow instabilities, show similar heat transfer behaviour. The heat transfer characteristics of the pipes have been studied in comparison with mass flux and vapour quality.     

Transportphenomena in subcooled flow boiling

Subcooled boiling has been subject of extensive research studies in the literature. So far, the approach of studying the phenomena of subcooled boiling has rather been an integral method by measuring the heat transport from the wall to the liquid and by following the growth and collapse of the bubbles. However, little is known about the heat transport at the phase interface between the surface of the bubbles and the subcooled liquid. Experimental attempts to study the transport phenomena around the bubble surface quantitatively have been performed by using the holographic interferometry, an optical method, which works in an inertialess and non-invasive way. The conventional holographic interferometry has somewhat been modified by applying the finite fringe method. With this technique interesting insights could be gained and precise quantitative data could be evaluated.     

Local and global instabilities of flow in a flexible-walled channel

We consider laminar high-Reynolds-number flow through a long finite-length planar channel, where a segment of one wall is replaced by a massless membrane held under longitudinal tension. The flow is driven by a fixed pressure difference across the channel and is described using an integral form of the unsteady boundary-layer equations. The basic flow state, for which the channel has uniform width, exhibits static and oscillatory global instabilities, having distinct modal forms. In contrast, the corresponding local problem (neglecting boundary conditions associated with the rigid parts of the system) is found to be convectively, but not absolutely, unstable to small-amplitude disturbances in the absence of wall damping. We show how amplification of the primary global oscillatory instability can arise entirely from wave reflections with the rigid parts of the system, involving interacting travelling-wave flutter and static-divergence modes that are convectively stable; alteration of the mean flow by oscillations makes the onset of this primary instability subcritical. We also show how distinct mechanisms of energy transfer differentiate the primary global mode from other modes of oscillatory instability.     

Interfacial instabilities in a stratified flow of two superposed fluids

Here we shall present a linear stability analysis of a laminar, stratified flow of two superposed fluids which are a clear liquid and a suspension of solid particles. The investigation is based upon the assumption that the concentration remains constant within the suspension layer. Even for moderate flow-rates the base-state results for a shear induced resuspension flow justify the latter assumption. The numerical solutions display the existence of two different branches that contribute to convective instability: long and short waves which coexist in a certain range of parameters. Also, a range exists where the flow is absolutely unstable. That means a convectively unstable resuspension flow can be only observed for Reynolds numbers larger than a lower, critical Reynolds number but still smaller than a second critical Reynolds number. For flow rates which give rise to a Reynolds number larger than the second critical Reynolds number, the flow is absolutely unstable. In some cases, however, there exists a third bound beyond that the flow is convectively unstable again. Experiments show the same phenomena: for small flow-rates short waves were usually observed but occasionally also the coexistence of short and long waves. These findings are qualitatively in good agreement with the linear stability analysis. Larger flow-rates in the range of the second critical Reynolds number yield strong interfacial waves with wave breaking and detached particles. In this range, the measured flow-parameters, like the resuspension height and the pressure drop are far beyond the theoretical results. Evidently, a further increase of the Reynolds number indicates the transition to a less wavy interface. Finally, the linear stability analysis also predicts interfacial waves in the case of relatively small suspension heights. These results are in accordance with measurements for ripple-type instabilities as they occur under laminar and viscous conditions for a mono-layer of particles.     

Stratification of boiling two-phase flow in a single horizontal channel

The objective of this study is to investigate experimentally the stratification phenomena of boiling two-phase flow in a uniformly heated horizontal channel. Two-phase flow stratification due to gravity effects, and consequently its thermal and hydrodynamic behavior, under steady state conditions, have been determined by measuring 16 top and 16 bottom wall temperatures. Six distinct wall temperature profiles are found, and the corresponding flow patterns are discussed. A dimensionless number has been formulated for the prediction of the occurrence of different flow patterns.     

Hydroelastic instabilities in viscoelastic flow past a cylinder confined in a channel

Experimental investigation of viscoelastic flow past a cylinder is conducted for a polyisobutylene-based polymer solution. High-image-density particle image velocimetry is utilized to quantitatively determine the spatial features of elastic wake instabilities. The viscoelastic flow bifurcates from steady two-dimensional flow to steady three-dimensional flow for values of the Deborah number (dimensionless flow rate) greater than a critical value. These hydroelastic flow transitions are manifested in the form of three-dimensional cells spaced periodically along the axis of the cylinder. The elastic flow structures do not exist in the Newtonian counterpart of creeping flow past a cylinder. Received: 7 October 1998 / Accepted: 22 April 1999     

Experimental investigation of three-dimensional flow instabilities in a rotating lid-driven cavity

The swirling flow between a rotating lid and a stationary cylinder is studied experimentally. The flow is governed by two parameters: the ratio of container height to disk radius, h, and the Reynolds number, Re, based on the disk angular velocity, cylinder radius and kinematic viscosity of the working liquid. For the first time, the onset of three-dimensional flow behavior is measured by combining the high spatial resolution of particle image velocimetry and the temporal accuracy of laser Doppler anemometry. A detailed mapping of the transition scenario from steady and axisymmetric flow to unsteady and three-dimensional flow is investigated for 1 ≥ h ≥ 3.5. The flow is characterized by the development of azimuthal modes of different wave numbers. A range of different modes is detected and critical Reynolds numbers and associated frequencies are identified. The results are compared to the numerical stability analysis of Gelfgat et al. (J Fluid Mech 438:363–377, 2001). In most cases, the measured onset of three-dimensionality is in good agreement with the numerical results and disagreements can be explained by bifurcations not accounted for by the numerical stability analysis.