Critical heat flux for finned and unfinned geometries under low flow and low pressure conditions

Abstract

This paper presents the experiment and analysis for the critical heat flux (CHF) in a vertical annulus with finned and unfinned geometries under low flow and low pressure conditions. To consider the fin effect on CHF, the tests were performed on both finned heater and unfinned heater having same dimension as finned heater without fins. An analytical model was applied to estimate the heat flux and temperature distributions along the periphery of the finned geometry. The physical phenomena observed during the experiments are discussed and the parametric trends of the obtained data are examined to investigate the CHF characteristics for the finned geometry. A new correlation is proposed to predict the CHF for both finned and unfinned geometries at low flow and low pressure conditions. The developed correlation predicts the experimental data with an RMS error of 13.7%. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.