Experimental study of heat transfer to falling liquid films

This project was initiated in order to obtain more knowledge about thermal design of falling film heat exchangers and to find methods to improve heat transfer in film flow. A short literature survey of film flow characteristics and heat transfer is presented. An experimental apparatus designed and built for studying falling film evaporation is described. The first experiments were made with smooth Cu tube 25/22 mm and refrigerant R114 as evaporating liquid. A significant amount of droplet entrainment was observed during the tests. The measured average heat transfer coefficient varied from 1000 to 1800 W/m K when Re=1300 to 11000 respectively and when the transfer mode is surface evaporation. This could be predicted accurately with the experimental correlation of Chun and Seban. When nucleate boiling is dominant the heat transfer could be predicted well with pool boiling correlation of VDI-84.