Convective Bubbly Flow of Water in an Annular Pipe: Role of Total Dissolved Solids on Heat Transfer Characteristics and Bubble Formation

Abstract

Formation of bubbles in water inside an annulus pipe in a flow boiling regime was experimentally investigated. The effect of various variables, such as total dissolved solid materials (TDS) in terms of mass fraction, flow rate of water, and applied heat flux (HF) on the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and bubble behavior of water, was experimentally investigated. A regression formula was fitted to estimate the average bubble diameter at various TDS values, with accuracy of <4.1% up to heat flux of 90 kW/m2. Results show that the presence of TDS materials can increase the contact angle of bubble and bubble diameter, and also promotes the HTC value of the system. However, flow rate of water suppressed bubble generation, and increased the heat transfer coefficient due to the renewal of the thermal boundary layer around the boiling surface. Likewise, it was identified that forced convective and nucleate boiling heat transfer mechanisms contribute to the flow of boiling water, and heat flux is a key parameter in determining the mechanism of heat transfer. In the present study, heat flux of 15 kW/m2 at 50 °C was the heat flux in which onset of nucleate boiling was identified inside the annulus pipe. The contact angle of water at TDS values of 300 mg/L and 1200 mg/L was 74° and 124°, respectively, showing the improvement in heat transfer characteristics of water due to the presence of TDS materials.