THERMAL SCIENCE

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On the prediction of experimental two-phase pressure drop through microchannels

ABSTRACT
In many different industrial sectors, including power plants, petroleum refineries, and process industries, two-phase flow is an essential element. It is critical to anticipate the pressure drop in two-phase flow accurately which is dependent on number of factors, including the mass fluxes of the phases, the channel's orientation, cross section, and size. An experimental investigation of adiabatic two-phase air-water flow in microchannels is presented in this paper. Acrylic rectangular microchannel with hydraulic diameter (Dh) of 0.367, 0.411, 0.554mm at horizontal orientation for the mass flux ranging from 290 to 1310 kgm-2s-1were used for conducting the experimental study. A few of the already known correlations were compared to the experimental two-phase pressure drop. Evaluation showed that the current correlations were insufficient to forecast the experimental findings. A new empirical correlation in terms of fluid characteristics and dimensionless numbers was developed based on the experimental results. The proposed correlation matches the current experimental results quite well. Most of the data was found to lie within the ± 25% error zone.
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2024-10-03
PAPER REVISED: 2025-01-03
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2025-01-10
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2025-03-08
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI241003031B
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