09603085/06/$30.00+0.

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# 2006 Institution of Chemical Engineers
Trans IChemE, Part C, December 2006
Food and Bioproducts Processing, 84(C4): 302 310

www.icheme.org/fbp
doi: 10.1205/fbp06031

MINIMUM WETTING AND DISTRIBUTION RATES

IN FALLING FILM EVAPORATORS
K. R. MORISON
, Q. A. G. WORTH and N. P. ODEA
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

alling film evaporators are used extensively in the food industry for their ability to process heat sensitive liquids. A coherent liquid film is required to maintain heat transfer
efficiency and minimize fouling. It is likely that most evaporator fouling occurs after
film breakdown as the substance within the evaporator dries out. The minimum flow rate
required to maintain a film is known as the minimum wetting rate which is defined as the
minimum mass flow rate per unit circumference. In this work, minimum wetting rates were
determined in a 1 m long, 48 mm internal diameter, vertical, stainless steel tube. Water and
aqueous solutions of glycerol, alcohol and calcium chloride were used. These substances
were chosen so as to give a wide range of properties such as viscosity (0.5 39 mPa s), density
(950 1410 kg m23), surface tension (35 90 mN m21) and contact angle (64 988). In a
separate set of experiments, the minimum flow rate required to distribute liquid and completely wet the top of industrial evaporator tubes was measured using a range of sucrose
solutions.
The tube wetting results obtained fitted a dimensionless power law relationship well. Surface tension and contact angle had a strong influence on the wetting rate but viscosity and
density were found to have very little effect. The minimum flow rates for distribution were
found to nearly always exceed the minimum wetting rates showing that more attention
needs to be given to distributor design.
Keywords: minimum wetting rate; falling film evaporators; liquid distribution.

INTRODUCTION

is completely wetted while in the other the flow rate is

reduced to the point of film breakdown (Watanabe et al.,
1975). This research was concerned with the first case of
wetting a dry surface which requires a higher flow rate
than the second. In particular the flow of isothermal vertical
films of aqueous solutions onto dry stainless steel with no
or low heat flux was of interest.
The paper of Hartley and Murgatroyd (1964) presents
some of the earliest work done in the field of film breakdown. They analysed the stability of an existing dry
patch (Figure 2) and determined the minimum wetting
rate by using a theoretical force balance [equation (1)].

Falling film evaporators are used extensively in the food

industry for their ability to process heat sensitive materials
such as milk before spray drying and fruit and vegetable
juices. In these evaporators (Figure 1) the feed enters the
top of the vessel, it is distributed so that it flows evenly
down all the tubes as a film, and the vapour and concentrate
leave from the bottom. A complete film should be maintained inside the tubes at all times. This requires that the
liquid is first distributed to all the tubes to provide sufficient
flow into each tube. Then the film must be maintained
down the tubes. Film breakdown will decrease the efficiency of the process and may cause excessive fouling
(Paramalingam et al., 2000). The minimum flow rate
required to establish or maintain a complete film is
known as the minimum wetting rate (normally designated
Gmin) which is defined as the mass flow rate per unit circumference of the tube. Minimum wetting rates can be
measured for two distinct circumstances; in one case the
liquid flow rate is increased until an initially dry surface

Gmin 1:69

mr
g

1=5

(s(1  cos u))3=5

(1)

which can be expressed in the dimensionless form as

3=5
Gmin
(s(1  cos u))r1=3
1:69
m
m4=3 g1=3

Correspondence to: Dr K. R. Morison, University of Canterbury, Private
Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand.
E-mail: ken.morison@canterbury.ac.nz

(2)

where s is the surface tension, u is the contact angle, m is

the viscosity and r is the density.
302

MINIMUM WETTING AND DISTRIBUTION RATES IN FALLING FILM EVAPORATORS

303

El-Genk and Saber (2001) provide a useful review of previous work and developed analytical expressions for minimum wetting rates. They compared these with some of the
data of Munakata et al. (1975) with satisfactory results.
From the analytical results they obtained a simple empirical
expression for the minimum wetting rate for a dry patch
which can be written as equation (5).

Gmin

Figure 1. A falling film evaporator.

The work was extended by many others including Hoke

and Chen (1992) who included terms for heat transfer but
they were concerned primarily with the heat flux required
to disrupt an established film. However their clear statement of the force balance in the isothermal case is useful
here even though the numerical results are almost identical
to equation (1). The forces acting on the vertical section of
fluid above the stagnation point arise from momentum of
the falling film, weight of the liquid and surface tension
which hold the fluid up. Expressed as force per unit
width, the three terms can be added to yield:


2
r3 g2 d5min 1
dmin

r
g
4
15m2
1  cos u
(2u  sin 2u) s( cos u  1) 0

(3)

The film thickness, dmin, is related to the minimum wetting

rate under steady laminar conditions by

Gmin

r2 gd3min
3m

Figure 2. Film breakdown (after Hartley and Murgatroyd, 1964).

(4)

0:2 
rms3
0:67(1  cos u)0:623
g

0:26(1  cos u)2:09

(5)

Here u is the advancing contact angle.

There is very little reported experimental work that
applies to the type of wetting of interest here (El-Genka
and Saber, 2001). Munakata et al. (1975) determined minimum wetting rates for falling films of aqueous glycerol
solutions flowing down the outside of stainless steel and
glass tubes. They tested various distributors and for water
they obtained minimum wetting rates on stainless steel
from 0.065 to 0.124 kg m21 s21, showing an experimental
variability of +40% about the mean. Hobler and Czajka
(1968) used aqueous glycerol solutions to wet stainless
steel surfaces at various angles and obtained a minimum
wetting rate of about 0.17 kg m21 s21. This was very
much higher than the results of Munakata et al. (1975).
Paramalingam et al. (2000) reported the minimum wetting
rate for 208C water on a vertical stainless steel plate to be
0.222 kg m21 s21. No details of the distribution system
used were given. Morison and Tandon (2006) obtained
minimum wetting rates ranging from 0.16 kg m21 s21 for
water at 208C to 0.12 kg m21 s21 for water at 708C and
0.22 kg m21 s21 for a 50% sucrose solution at 208C.
They used a ceramic distributor with 36 holes near the
base through which liquid flowed before flowing down
the inside of a 47.6 mm internal diameter stainless steel
tube. Their work showed that showed that viscosity
affected the wetting rate much less than predicted by
equation (1).
In an industrial evaporator a distribution system is
installed above the top tube sheet. A typical system consists
of a flat bottom container with holes (5 8 mm in diameter)
that allows liquid to flow onto the flat tube sheet between
the evaporator tubes (Figure 3). One common design has
six distributor holes around every tube (as shown in
Figure 3) while another has three. Some distributor plates
have vapour tubes that allow flashed vapour to escape
downwards into the tubes or upwards from the tube. The
effectiveness of these is beyond the scope of the present
study.
No published reports of experimental or theoretical work
have been found for wetting at the top edge of a vertical
tube. Similarly no work has been found for the wetting of
any edge such as a weir. One similar situation is that
known as the tea pot effect (Kistler and Scriven, 1994).
This effect causes liquids (e.g., liquid tea) to cling to an
edge and flow in the reverse direction. It is likely that
this effect has phenomena in common with flow over an
edge, but theoretical analysis of the flow will not be considered in this work.

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304

MORISON et al.

Figure 3. Plan and elevation views of a typical distribution system.

The flow rate, Q, through a hole (diameter D and area A)

in the distributor plate can be described by Toricellis
equation
p
Q Cd A 2gh

(6)

where h is the height of liquid from the base of the hole to

the surface of the liquid and Cd is a discharge coefficient
that is likely to vary with Reynolds number, plate thickness
and the radius of the edge of upstream entrance
of the hole.
p
For design purposes it is convenient to (2gh) as at estimate of velocity and thus an alternative Reynolds number
Reh is defined:
p
D 2ghr
Reh
m

(7)

Some of the physical properties required for this work had

been measured previously so were not measured here. The
viscosity and density of ethanol and water solutions are
given by Yusa et al. (1977). The density and viscosity of
water were obtained from Weast (1977). The surface tensions of the sucrose solutions were obtained from Schmidt
et al. (2000).
There were two main aims for this work. The first was to
obtain data for minimum wetting rates of a vertical tube,
using a selection of liquids with a sufficiently wide range
of physical properties, so as to provide the basis for confirmation or otherwise of the theoretical relationships. The
second aim was to determine the minimum flow rate
(expressed as a wetting rate) that is required to achieve
full liquid distribution into the top entrance of the evaporator tubes. The results from the two parts were then to be
compared to determine whether distribution or tube wetting
is a limiting factor in evaporator design.

Three different apparatuses were used: a falling film

evaporator tube for the determination of tube wetting
rates, a simple draining device for the determination of discharge coefficients for the design of distribution plates, and
a model of the distribution system in an evaporator for the
examination of liquid distribution.

Physical Properties
The densities of solutions that could not be obtained
from literature were determined by the use of a density
bottle at 208C. Densities at other temperatures were calculated by assuming that the specific gravity of the solution
was constant. The viscosity of the 95% glycerol solution
was measured using a Haake concentric cylinder viscometer which had been calibrated using a standard oil. The
absolute accuracy was better than +5%.
The contact angle was measured using the apparatus
shown in Figure 4 which was housed in a humidified, temperature controlled air-bath. Solution was fed via a hypodermic needle into a hole in a 304 stainless steel plate. A
syringe pump (KDS100, KD Scientific, Hilliston, MA,
USA) was used to inject a solution at a flow rate of
3 mL h 1 so that a slowly advancing drop formed without
any size reduction from evaporation. The drop was backlit
by reflecting light off white paper. As the drop formed (up
to a diameter of about 10 mm) on the plate images were
captured by a digital camera with a close-up lens. The
size of the drop was determined by comparing it with the
image of a steel ball of known dimensions that was suspended above the drop. The shape of the drop was analysed
using axisymmetric drop shape analysis (Lahooti et al.,
1996). The equations were integrated using the Runge
Kutta Fehlberg method and the parameters were solved

METHODS AND MATERIALS

The solutions used for tube wetting experiments were
water at 608C, and aqueous solutions of 95% (by mass) glycerol at 608C, 30% ethanol at 258C, and 30% and 40% food
grade calcium chloride at 258C. These were chosen to give
a range of viscosity and contact angle while being reproducible. For distribution experiments, water and aqueous solutions of up to 66.5% sucrose between 258C and 308C were
used.

Figure 4. Apparatus for contact angle measurement.

Trans IChemE, Part C, Food and Bioproducts Processing, 2006, 84(C4): 302 310

MINIMUM WETTING AND DISTRIBUTION RATES IN FALLING FILM EVAPORATORS

305

Figure 6. Liquid distributor used in the falling film evaporator.

Figure 5. Falling film evaporator for determination of minimum wetting

rates.

using Excel Solver. The contact angle was determined to

within +18.
Surface tension was measured either using a Fisher surface tensiometer with a de Nouy ring or (for calcium chloride solution) with a Wilhelmy plate suspended from an
electronic balance with a resolution of 0.1 mg. The force
reading relative to that for distilled water was used to calculate the surface tension. The methods were found to be
repeatable to + 0.5 mN m21.
Falling Film Apparatus
The falling film apparatus (Figure 5) consisted of an
evaporator tube 1 m long with inner diameter 47.6 mm
inside an annular water jacket with an outer diameter of
72 mm. The evaporator tube and the other tubing in the
apparatus were constructed from 304 stainless steel. Several different distributor designs were tested. The first
design was based on an annular gap between the distributor and the inside wall of the evaporator tube and the
some distributors were made as overflowing weirs of plastic, glass and stainless steel. Next a ceramic annulus with
a number of holes near the base [described by Morison
and Tandon (2006)] was used. The chosen distributor
(Figure 6) was an unglazed ceramic annulus with the
same internal diameter as the evaporator tube. The solution flowed from an external connection, up through a
perforated ring, and over the top of the distributor to
form a coherent film on the ceramic before flowing into

the tube. A run was deemed acceptable only if a complete

film was flowing from the ceramic distributor onto the top
edge of the stainless steel tube before complete tube
wetting was achieved.
The evaporator tube was cleaned before every run except
for sequential runs with water. The preheater water bath
was set to a temperature to achieve the desired inlet temperature of 608C or 258C with an accuracy and stability of
+0.18C. Heating was carried out by pumping the solutions
using a gear pump (Series 120, Micropump Inc, Vancouver,
WA, USA) through the feed preheating water bath, rotameter, and the bypass line back to the feed tank. Water
was circulated through the water jacket at the same temperature to ensure there was no heat transfer. The gear
pump speed was initially set to give a flow rate of about
0.7 L min21 and the valves were changed to give flow
into the apparatus. The flow rate was then slowly increased,
using a variable speed drive, by as little as 0.020 L min21
every 2 min, until the tube was observed to be completely
wet. The flow rate was then determined by bucket and stopwatch by disconnecting the bypass line at a point that gave
no change in pumping head. The minimum flow rate
required to wet the tube was divided by the circumference
to determine the minimum wetting rate. All of the experimental runs reported in this paper were conducted at atmospheric pressure.
Discharge Coefficient Apparatus
To enable appropriate calculation of hole sizes using
equation (6), experiments were carried out to determine
the discharge coefficient for water and sucrose solutions
through countersunk holes with diameters from 4 mm to
8 mm in 5 mm thick acrylic sheet. A test cup was constructed with a piece of acrylic containing a hole at the
base. The test liquid was pumped using a gear pump
(Micropump GC, Vancouver, WA, USA) into the cup and
the flow rate and liquid heights (from the bottom of the
plate) were measured. The viscosities and densities of the
sucrose solutions were obtained from Weast (1977) and
temperature corrections were applied if required up
to 308C.

Trans IChemE, Part C, Food and Bioproducts Processing, 2006, 84(C4): 302 310

306

MORISON et al.

Figure 7. Apparatus for determination of minimum distribution rates.

Distribution Apparatus
A model of the top of a falling film evaporator was constructed from 316 stainless steel (Figure 7). It comprised a
10 mm tube sheet with 19 tubes, each 50.8 mm outside
diameter and 500 mm long that were welded in a triangular
pitch of 60 mm (Figure 8). The top edge was ground to give
a radius of 1 2 mm. The tube arrangement was chosen to
provide a central tube that was unaffected by edge effects
with six tubes around the centre that were minimally
affected by edge effects. The tubes were suspended over
a collection tank. Various distributors were constructed
from acrylic sheet and holes were drilled on the same
pitch so that liquid would fall onto the tube sheet at a
point symmetrically between the tubes. A pre-distributor
was fitted above the distributor to minimise flow disturbances on the distributor. The feed tank contained a coil of

copper tubing through which tap water flowed to help

maintain the temperature of the liquid.
Liquid was pumped from the feed tank, via a manual
control valve and rotameter, into the distribution system.
The liquid then flowed down the tubes and through some
inverted plastic bottles and tubing to allow manual flow
measurement. The liquid then returned to the feed tank
for recirculation.
Four different distributors were constructed from 5 mm
acrylic sheet. Two (designated A) had three holes around
each evaporator tube and the other two (designated B)
had six holes per tube, as shown in Figure 8. One of each
pair one was designed for liquids with viscosity similar to
water (referred to as water) and the other was designed
with larger holes for liquids with a viscosity of about
50 mPa s (referred to as sugar).
The diameters of the holes in the distributor plates were
calculated to give equal flow to each evaporator tube under
typical conditions. It was assumed that the flow from each
distributor hole would flow to its nearest tubes. For holes
near the centre, the flow would be shared between three
tubes giving one-third of the flow to each. For the A
design distributor each central tube would be fed by three
such distributor holes so the tube flow rate should have
been the same as the distributor hole flow rate. Some of
the outer holes would be shared between two tubes while
others would feed only one tube. In Figure 8(a) the white
holes should have a flow rate equal to the tube flow rate,
while the cross-hatched and black holes should have flow
rates of 23 and 13 respectively of the tube flow rate. For the
B design distributors [Figure 8(b)] each central tube is
fed by six distributor holes so the tube flow rate is twice
the distributor hole flow rate. The flow rates through the
white, cross-hatched and black holes should be 12, 13 and 16
respectively of the tube flow rate. The hole diameters are
proportional to the square root of these ratios and are
given in Table 1. All the holes were countersunk to a
depth of about 1 mm on the top side. The side wall of the
distributor was 90 mm high, making this the maximum
possible liquid height in the distributor.
The pre-distribution system was designed after a series
of trials with the aim of ensuring uniform distribution
with a minimum of momentum effects. Firstly (Figure 7)
the single stream of liquid fell from the end of a 25 mm

Figure 8. Distributor designs A and B. White holes feed three tubes, cross-hatched holes feed two tubes and black holes feed one. The positions of the tubes
are shown by the dashed circles.

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MINIMUM WETTING AND DISTRIBUTION RATES IN FALLING FILM EVAPORATORS

Table 1. Hole sizes (mm) in the distributors.
Hole type

Relative flow

A-water

A-sugar

B-water

B-sugar

1
2/3
1/3

6.0
4.9
3.5

8.0
6.5
4.6

4.5
3.7
2.6

6.4
5.2
3.7

White
Grey
Black

tube into a small 65 mm diameter container with holes on

the vertical wall about 30 mm up from the bottom; this
removed the downward momentum of the liquid. The
liquid then flowed into a series of two large plastic bowls,
the first with large holes in the base and the second with
smaller holes before landing onto the distributor plate. If
the fluid had a viscosity less than 7 mPa s it also passed
through an acrylic sheet with 4 mm holes drilled into it
and with plastic mesh fixed onto either side to further
reduce the momentum of the fluid. With this system the
fluid was distributed horizontally to all parts of the distributor plate with a minimum amount of momentum.
Before each run the tube sheet was cleaned with water
and dried using a hair drier. Often water was sufficient
for cleaning but if cleanliness was in doubt it was cleaned
with 2% sodium hydroxide solution followed, after a rinse,
by 2% nitric acid and a further water rinse.
For each run the flow rate was slowly increased by
adjusting the manual value until the top part of all of the
seven internal tubes were completely wetted by a coherent
film. At this point the distributor liquid height, liquid temperature and flow rates from the tubes were measured. The
minimum distribution rate was calculated as the average
of the mass flow rates down the seven inner tubes divided
by the tube circumference. This definition is analogous to
the minimum wetting rate for wetting within the tube.
RESULTS AND ANALYSES

307

liquid in distributors using a weir overflow (Gmin was

0.20 kg m21 s21). The ceramic distributor reported by
Morison and Tandon (2006) described above proved unsatisfactory for viscous fluids. The overflowing ceramic distributor became fully wetted on the inside ceramic surface and
would fully wet the top edge of the stainless tube at flow
rates lower than that required to wet the entire tube. The wetting rate obtained (0.104 kg m21 s21 for water) was lower
than that obtained using the other distributor designs.
It took approximately 20 min to determine the minimum
wetting rate for a particular condition. Initially the flow rate
was set well below the expected minimum wetting rate. At
this low flow one single fat rivulet was often seen flowing
down the tube. When the flow rate was increased three or
four rivulets might form, then, as the flow rate was
increased, the gaps between all but one of these would
become wetted until finally there would be one dry patch,
about 5 10 mm below the top edge, similar to that
shown in Figure 2. The final stage of complete wetting
often occurred over a period of about 2 min with no further
increase in flow rate. Once a complete film was achieved in
the top section of the tube, the film never broke further
down the tube. The minimum wetting rates obtained for
the various fluids are reported in Table 2.
The data was analysed using the two dimensionless
groups used in equation (2) and it was found that a
power relationship [equation (8) and Figure 9] best fitted
the data (R 2 0.995).


0:764
Gmin
(1  cos u)sr1=3
0:232
m
m4=3 g1=3

(8)

The effect of each parameter is more clearly shown by

equation (9)
Gmin 0:13((1  cos u)s)0:764 r0:255 m0:018

(9)

Physical Properties
Table 2 lists the physical properties measured or
obtained from literature (shown in italics).
Tube Wetting
The different distributor designs were tested before selecting the design described above. The first design based on an
annular gap between the evaporator tube and the distributor
was not effective as very small variations in the gap caused
non-uniform distribution (Gmin was 0.28 kg m21s21 for
water at 208C). Surface tension was seen to hold back

Figure 9 shows that equations (2) and (5) are not a good predictor of the experimental results. In an attempt to resolve
this discrepancy, the film thickness required to satisfy the
force balance given by equation (3) was calculated and compared with the steady laminar film thickness determined,
using equation (4), from the experimental wetting rates.
The correlation is shown in Figure 10 with a best fit line
forced to pass through the origin. The film thickness required
by the force balance was always larger than for the calculated laminar film thickness. This indicated that the film
thickness at the stagnation point (Figure 2) is greater than
the thickness for the same flow rate when complete wetting

Table 2. Experimental film wetting results.

Fluid
Water
Water
Glycerol/water
Ethanol/water
CaCl2/water
CaCl2/water

Temperature
8C
60
25
60
25
25
25

Concentration
w/w

Density
kg m23

Viscosity
mPa s

Surface tension
mN m21

Contact
angle 8

No. of runs

Minimum wetting rate

kg m21 s21

95%
30%
30%
40%

983.2
997.1
1224
951.6
1300
1412

0.463
0.891
39
2.23
3.36
7.53

66.2
72.0
63.7
35.5
87.3
90.2

88
88
80
64.5
97.6
96.7

7
.10
6
6
1
2

0.104 + 0.005
0.104 + 0.005
0.084 + 0.005
0.038 + 0.004
0.156 + 0.005
0.193 + 0.005

Values in italics were obtained from literature.

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308

MORISON et al.

Figure 11. Discharge coefficients for flow through a countersunk hole in a

5 mm sheet.
Figure 9. Experimental minimum wetting rates compared with equation
(2) and predictions from equation (5).

is achieved. This seems reasonable as full wetting reduces

the surface tension term in the force balance to zero.
Discharge Coefficients
The discharge coefficient was measured for flow of
liquids through a countersunk hole and related to the Reynolds number or the alternative estimate Reh defined by
equation (7). The results are shown in Figure 11.
The relationship between Cd and Reh was satisfactorily
described by the empirical equation
Cd 1  2:44Re0:36
h
or based on Re
Cd 1  1:19Re0:245
Cd 1  1:96Re

0:34

(10)

for Re , 200

(11a)

for Re . 200

(11b)

Figure 10. Comparison of film thicknesses calculated from the force

balance and from experimental data.

Distribution
Distribution tests were carried out with aqueous sucrose
solutions from 0 to 66.5% sucrose by mass. It was observed
(as shown in Figure 12) that in most cases the liquid formed
a hydraulic jump on the tube sheet. Within the jump radius
the liquid velocity was relatively high and the liquid flowed
immediately into the tube wetting the part of the circumference within the jump. Beyond the jump radius, the liquid
rose to a height of about 3 mm and at low flow rates surface
tension effects held it on the tube sheet without flow into
some parts of the tube.
The tubes in the outer ring did not become fully wetted
before the others and it seemed that some of the outer distributor holes were a little too small. However there was no
evidence of any edge effects influencing the wetting of the
seven inner tubes.
When all seven inner tubes in the tube sheet were fully
wet, the range in flow rates through the seven tubes was
typically 10 20% of the average of the seven. The A
design (with three distributor holes per tube) tended to
have a greater range (up to 25%) than the B design (with
six holes per tube) which had a range of up to 17%. It
was found that the A design gave much less consistent
minimum distribution rates than the B design. Generally

Figure 12. Flow from the A-sugar distributor with 57% sucrose solution
showing hydraulic jumps and incomplete distribution into the tubes.

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MINIMUM WETTING AND DISTRIBUTION RATES IN FALLING FILM EVAPORATORS

Figure 13. Minimum distribution rates for distributor designs A and B,

with curve showing predicted minimum tube wetting rates.

the A design required a higher flow rate to achieve wetting

and at concentrations above 60% failed to achieve wetting
at distribution rates of about 0.3 kg m21 s21.
Two tests were carried out with a gap between the
bottom of the distributor and the tube sheet of 69 mm
instead of 40 mm as used in all other trials. For the A
and B designs the minimum distribution rates were 10%
and 9% higher than for the 40 mm gap (shown as and 
in Figure 13). This difference is small and might not be
significant.
During initial tests it was found that pre-distribution was
critically important. In one final test only the first small
container (Figure 7) was used for pre-distribution (above
the distributor). The resulting distribution was visibly
inferior and the distribution rate for wetting was about
10% higher (shown as an open circle in Figure 13). The
range of flow rates within the seven inner tubes was
much greater being 41% of the average.
Also shown in Figure 13 is a curve of the predicted minimum wetting rates that were calculated using the equation
(8). Relevant properties of aqueous sucrose and an estimated contact angle of 888 were used. In nearly all cases
the minimum distribution rate was greater than the tube
wetting rate.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

To obtain accurate minimum wetting rates in the falling
film tube it was found that the liquid distributor needed to
have superior wetting characteristics, and hence a lower
minimum wetting rate, than the falling film tube. It was
suspected that the main reason for the difference from previously reported results is the inadequacy of the distributors
used in the earlier work.
The minimum wetting rates obtained in this work were
lower than the studies mentioned above, except for the
study of Munakata et al. (1975). However the repeatability
of our results is better than the 1975 study.
Equation (9) shows that viscosity had very little influence on wetting rate. The exponent (20.018) was significantly lower than 0.2 used in equations (1) and (5) or

309

obtained from equations (3) and (4). Similarly the exponent of density is small and the effect of density on the
minimum wetting rate was less than 11% over the full
range of densities measured. The major influences on
the minimum wetting rate were surface tension and contact angle. Zisman (1964) showed that for a given surface
there is normally a close (often linear) relationship
between surface tension and the cosine of the contact
angle. Thus there is possibly only one independent variable (surface tension or contact angle) that has a major
influence on minimum wetting rate.
The empirical equation for wetting rate obtained here
indicates that the theory needs to be reconsidered. It
seems very likely that the weakness of the approach used
by others is the assumption that the film thickness at the
stagnation point is the same as the steady laminar flow
film thickness after complete wetting has been achieved.
It is not obvious how one might develop of theoretical
relationship between these two thicknesses, however it
should be possible to measure the thickness of the film at
the stagnation point and at the same point when the same
flow rate of liquid fully wets the tube.
In the second part of the research, an equation was
obtained relating the discharge coefficient to Reynolds
number for flow through a countersunk hole in a thick
plate. While the results were satisfactory for the selection
of hole sizes in distributor plates, the scatter in the results
indicated that a single equation was not sufficient to
describe the flow for a range of holes sizes and fluid viscosities. A more complex analysis was not required for the
design of the distributors used in this work.
The distribution system for the distribution experiments
was designed such that it would model industrial systems
as closely as possible while at the same time allowing consistent conditions. It became very clear during initial trials
that any downwards momentum in fluid coming onto the
distributor plate resulted in variability in the flow rates
through the distributor holes, even when there was more
than 50 mm height of liquid in the distributor. As more
pre-distribution devices were added, more consistent and
lower distribution rates were obtained. The pre-distribution
system used seemed to be effective in minimising momentum effects as seen by the reasonably consistent results that
were obtained for the B-style distributor.
Visual inspection of the flow pattern on the tube sheet
(Figure 12) indicated that the hydraulic jump radius influenced the minimum distribution rate. Full distribution
into the tubes was achieved within the jump radius,
where the fluid velocity was higher, but at distances
beyond the jump radius distribution was less effective.
Attempts were made to relate the minimum distribution
rates to the hydraulic jump radius but no clear quantitative
relationships were found.
The six-hole B design generally gave lower minimum
distribution rates than the three-hole A design. This is
almost certainly because a greater proportion of the top
edge of the tubes is exposed to a region within the hydraulic jump and hence to a higher velocity.
The experimental results showed that the minimum distribution rate was nearly always greater than the minimum
tube wetting rate. Thus when designing evaporators, attention must be given to the distribution system and distribution rates, and not only to the tube wetting rates.

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MORISON et al.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Marcus Le Quesne for carrying out many of
the distribution experiments.
The manuscript was received 4 May 2006 and accepted for publication
after revision 17 August 2006.

Trans IChemE, Part C, Food and Bioproducts Processing, 2006, 84(C4): 302 310