A general correlation for the frictional pressure drop during condensation in mini/micro and macro channels

• Published in: International journal of heat and mass transfer 2020-12, Vol.163, p.120475, Article 120475
• Main Authors: Moradkhani, M.A., Hosseini, S.H., Valizadeh, M., Zendehboudi, Alireza, Ahmadi, G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Channels; Computational fluid dynamics; Condensation; Correlation; Data points; Deviation; Fluxes; Genetic algorithms; Genetic programming; Mini/micro and macro channels, frictional pressure drop, two-phase flow; Nonlinear equations; Pressure drop; Two phase flow
• ISSN: 0017-9310; 1879-2189
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2020.120475

•Evaluated previous two-phase flow frictional pressure drop correlations.•Proposed a new correlation for condensation frictional pressure drop in mini/micro and macro channels.•Verified the model with 7328 data points from 35 published papers.•Discussed the effects of the input parameters on the frictional pressure drop. A general nonlinear equation for estimating the frictional pressure drop during condensation of fluids in different mini/micro and macro channels was obtained using the genetic programming (GP). The developed model is similar to that of the Lockhart and Martinelli [1] model. For developing the new correlation, 7328 data points were collected from 35 sources, which cover a wide range of fluids, channel geometries, diameters, mass fluxes, and saturation temperatures for single-port and multi-port channels. The newly developed correlation for the two-phase flow predicted a wide range of conditions with an average absolute relative deviation (AARD) of 22.92%. The same database was used for the evaluation of the available empirical correlations. Their deviations were significantly higher than that of the new correlation.