Roughness Effects on Nucleate Pool Boiling of R-113 on Horizontal Circular Copper Surfaces

The present paper is an experimental investigation of roughness effects on nucleate pool boiling of refrigerant R113 on horizontal circular copper surfaces. The copper samples were treated by different sand paper grit sizes to achieve different surface roughness. The average surface roughness of the four samples was 0.901, 0.735, 0.65, and 0.09, respectively. The experiments were performed in the heat flux range of 8 to 200kW/m. The heat transfer coefficient was calculated by measuring wall superheat of the samples and the input heat flux. The results show significant improvement of heat transfer coefficient as the surface roughness is increased. It is found that the heat transfer coefficient of the sample with Ra=0.901 is 3.4, 10.5, and 38.5% higher in comparison with surfaces with Ra of 0.735, 0.65, and 0.09 at heat flux of 170 kW/m. Moreover, the results are compared with literature data and the well known Cooper correlation. Keywords—Nucleate Boiling, Pool Boiling, R113, Surface Roughness Nomenclature h Heat transfer coefficient (W/mK) M Molecular mass (kg/mol) n Exponent of pr, Cooper correlation, (1) P Pressure (kPa) Pc Critical pressure (kPa) Pr Reduced pressure (Pr=P/Pc) q Heat flux (W/m) Ra Arithmetical mean deviation of the profile (μm) Rp Maximum peak height of the profile (μm) Ts Liquid Temperature (K) Tw Wall Surface Temperature (K)