Analysis of Flow Boiling Frictional Pressure Drop in Plate Heat Exchangers

Plate heat exchangers are widely used in various industries for many years. The corrugated channels on the plates effectively enhance the turbulence of flow boiling and complicate the prediction of pressure drop. This article presents a brief review about effects of various operating and geometrical factors on frictional pressure drop during flow boiling in plate heat exchangers. Experimental data points of frictional pressure drop were collected from the previous literature to develop a general correlation. The database contained 591 data points, covering six different refrigerants, mass flux range 5.5–130 kg/m²/s¹, heat flux 0–15 kW/m², vapor quality 0.04–0.96, saturation temperature −25 to 61 C°, chevron angle 20 deg–65 deg, and hydraulic diameter 1.7–5.35 mm. In this study, several existing correlations were compared with the database, and most of them seem fail to give an acceptable prediction. A new correlation was proposed with multiple regression analysis in terms of two-phase Fanning friction factor. The new method showed a good agreement with the present database and predicted 70.2% and 91.7% of data points within ±30% and ±50% errors, respectively.