Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Heat Transfer and Condensation in Micro-Ribbed Tubes

The thermal transmission coefficient for a micro-ribbed tube has been determined using theoretical relationships and the outcomes of such calculations have been compared with experiments conducted using a R1234yf refrigerant undergoing condensation.In particular four theoretical single-phase flow and three multi-phase flow models have been used in this regard.The experimental results show that:the Oliver et al.criterion equation overestimates the experimental results as its accuracy is significantly affected by the specific conditions realized inside micro-fin tubes;the Miyara et al.criterion equation prediction error is less than 15%;the Cavallini et al.approach gives the highest prediction accuracy;the Goto et al.model overestimates the test data.Such results are critically discussed and some indications for the improvement of such models are provided.