Heat Transfer Correlations for Condensation in Three-Dimensional Surface Enhanced Heat Transfer Tubes

Experimental condensation heat transfer data from our previous studies were collected to find a suitable heat transfer correlation for three-dimensional surface enhanced heat transfer tubes. Dimples/protrusions and petal arrays make up the enhanced surface of the 1EHT tube, while longitudinal grooves and dimples constitute that of the other two 2EHT tubes. Working fluids investigated includes three refrigerants R22, R32, R410A and three enhanced tubes have a same nominal inner diameter of 12.7mm. Due to the unique and complex surface structure of three EHT tubes, a constant is proposed and utilized for each EHT tube to estimate the impact of enhanced surfaces on interfacial turbulence, boundary layer disruption, flow separation and secondary flow generation. In addition, the Cavallini correlation modified with the constant can predict almost all the data points within a ±5% error band, which can be a good example for how to predetermine the heat transfer coefficient of three-dimensional enhanced tubes with a unique surface.