Proceedings of the ASME 2012 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition

IMECE2012
November 9-15, 2012, Houston, Texas, USA

IMECE2012-87468

AN ANALYTICAL MODEL OF FLOW BOILING HEAT TRANSFER FOR SLUG FLOW

IN A SINGLE CIRCULAR HORIZONTAL MICRO-CHANNEL
Amen M. Younes
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
am_youn@encs.concordia.ca
ABSTRACT
Slug flow is one of the most common flow patterns that
occur during flow boiling in horizontal micro-channels. In the
present work, an analytical model of flow boiling heat transfer
is developed for slug flow in a single circular horizontal microchannel under a uniform heat flux. The heat transfer is affected
mainly by the liquid film thickness confined between the vapor
slug and the channel wall. For more physical and reliable flow
boiling heat transfer model, the liquid film thickness variation
and pressure gradient effects on the flow boiling heat transfer
coefficient are considered. The influence of vapor quality on
heat transfer coefficient, vapor velocity and liquid film velocity
is studied. The model is constructed based on the conservation
equations of the separated two phase flow. The interphase
surface is assumed to be smooth and the flow is a laminar flow.
The obtained model applied for flow boiling of R-134a
refrigerant in the slug flow at a narrow vapor quality
range (0.0 < < 0.1). The heat transfer coefficient showed a
high increase close to the low vapor quality while decreases
gradually after the peak. Furthermore, the vapor velocity
increases linearly by increasing the vapor quality while, the
liquid film velocity decreases.
NOMENCLATURE

channel cross section area, 2 .

Boiling number.
Capillary number.
Confinement number.
diameter, .
bubble frequency, .
friction factor.
mass flux, 2 . .
saturated liquid enthalpy.
saturated vapor enthalpy.
heat transfer coefficient, 2 . .
length, .

Ibrahim Hassan
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
ibrahimh@alcor.concordia.ca
mass flow rate, .
Prandtl number.
inner channel perimeter, .
interfacial surface perimeter.
pressure.
heat flux, 2 .
Reynolds number.
ui interfacial velocity, .
u vapor velocity, .
u liquid film velocity, .
u liquid slug velocity, .
vapor quality.
Weber number.
Greek symbols
area void fraction.
mass flow rate per unit length, /. .
liquid film thickness, .
dynamic viscosity, . /2 .
density, 3 .
surface tension, /.
shear stress, 2 .
Subscripts

bubble.
critical.
convective boiling dominant.

liquid or liquid film.

gas or vapor phase.

hydraulic.

inlet.

liquid slug.
LO liquid only.
nucleate boiling dominant.
o
initial.
outlet.
saturated.
two phase.

wall.

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INTRODUCTION
Flow boiling in micro-channels is an essential option for
cooling high heat flux micro-devices. Developing thermal
design guidelines for flow boiling in micro-channels is needed.
Flow boiling in micro-channels is distinguished by its unique
flow patterns. The latter are categorized into three main
common flow patterns which are bubbly flow, slug flow, and
annular flow. Slug flow usually occurs at low and intermediate
vapor quality range. This flow pattern plays a significant role in
heat transfer enhancement in two-phase flow in microchannels.
Slug flow is characterized by a travelling train consists of
various elongated bubbles separated by liquid slugs. The
elongated bubble is surrounded by a thin liquid film confined
by the channel surface. By browsing the literature, one can see
many experimental and few analytical studies for flow boiling
in micro-channels have been performed in the last three
decades. Four major design parameters were conducted in most
of the previous studies, flow boiling heat transfer coefficient,
frictional pressure drop, critical heat flux and flow pattern map.
Moriyama and Inoue [1] investigated experimentally
adiabatic flow pattern, pressure drop and heat transfer for twophase boiling flow of R-113 in very narrow passages with size
of 35 110 m and proposed a phenomenological model of
boiling in micro-channels. According to their experimental
results, a sharp rising in heat transfer coefficient was observed
in the single-phase region at low quality range [0-0.1], while
there was not a significant change in heat transfer coefficient in
the two-phase region in terms of vapor quality. Additionally, the
order of two-phase heat transfer coefficient was 2 to 20 times
higher than that of the liquid single-phase flow. This range
narrows by decreasing channel size. Meanwhile, they revealed
that the heat transfer coefficient decreases by increasing
Capillary number at low range of values and increases
at high range of Ca values.
Moreover, they developed analytical models for the twophase multiplier of frictional pressure drop lv and two-phase
heat transfer coefficient prediction for low quality region; slug
flow; and high quality region; film flow. In slug flow model,
they neglected the interaction between elongated bubble and
liquid slug, but considered the drag force effect. Thus, the
model underestimated the experimental data that were used in
comparison. Regard to the liquid-film region, the heat transfer
model was developed based on the liquid-film evaporation and
considering the significance of surface tension effect. The
average liquid film velocity, interfacial velocity, interfacial
shear stress, two-phase multiplier and two-phase pressure drop
were derived and presented in terms of ( ) ratio for the film
flow and elongated bubble regions. Their predicted values and
the experimental data were in a good agreement.
Jacobi and Thome [2] proposed a heat transfer model for
the evaporation of the elongated bubble in slug flow regime in
micro channels. The thin-film evaporation was considered as a
dominant heat transfer mechanism. The model predicts the
local heat transfer coefficient for the elongated bubble/liquid
slug pair in a circular micro channel and it is dependent of two

unknown empirical parameters that are difficult to be estimated

analytically; the initial liquid film thickness and the
nucleation critical radius . The thin liquid film was assumed
to be a uniform in the slug pair. The authors used the
conduction-limited model of Plesset and Zwick [3] to estimate
the time required for creating two bubble/slug pairs which is
used for bubble frequency prediction. In addition, the model
was developed by applying the void fraction equation, mass
and energy conservation equations on the bubble/liquid slug
pair. The authors neglected the heat transfer to the laminar
liquid slug compare to the elongated bubble. Thus, their model
considered only the significance of the elongated bubble zone
for heat transfer process. Furthermore, the model was
confronted to experimental data obtained by Bao et al [4] for R11, with initial liquid film thickness o = 12.5 m and
Teff = 28 K within an average relative error less than 10 %.
Meanwhile, the authors correlated other experimental data
points for R-12 performed by Tran et al. [5] and the model
predicted their data with an average deviation less than 13% for
Teff = 23 K and o = 20 m. In general, their model was able
to predict the effects of psat ,q , G and x on the heat transfer
coefficient in the elongated bubble zone with a reasonable
agreement depending on the estimated values of Teff , and o .
Qu and Mudawar [6] Part I investigated experimentally
the measurement and prediction of saturated flow boiling heat
transfer coefficient in rectangular cross-sectional microchannels applied for a water-cooled heat sink consists of 12
micro-channels. The cross section size was 231 713 m. A
decrease in heat transfer coefficient when the vapor quality
increases was observed in a low vapor quality range.
Furthermore, a sudden transition to annular flow mode was
observed also close to the low vapor quality range. Six
correlations originally developed for macro-cannels and five
others developed for mini-micro channels were used by the
authors for confronting their experimental data. Most of
correlations used in comparison were developed based on
domination of nucleate boiling except the one proposed by Lee
and Lee [7] which was developed based on the principle of
forced convective boiling domination. Besides, the tested fluids
were different as well. Thus, neither the macro-channel
correlation nor the mini-micro channel correlation captured the
measured heat transfer coefficient trend which showed a
decreasing in flow boiling heat transfer coefficient when vapor
quality increases. This was attributed due to the influence of
entrained droplets deposition occurs in annular flow mode.
Above all, the authors revealed that forced convective boiling is
the dominant heat transfer mechanism for annular flow boiling
in micro-channels.
Following their work in Part I, Qu and Mudawar [8] Part
II, developed an analytical flow boiling heat transfer model for
annular flow in micro-channels. The onset of annular flow in
horizontal tubes was estimated to be in a very low vapor quality
range of [0.006 0.0064] based on a correlation developed
by Taitel and Duckler [9] that was dependent of Martinelli
parameter. In the meantime, the model was established based
on applying conservation equations of the mass and momentum

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for two domains, the liquid film and the vapor core including
the entrained droplets. Both domains were assumed to be
laminar and obtained equations were developed and solved
numerically based on a tentative initial value of liquid film
thickness. The principle of heat transfers conduction through
the thin liquid film was adopted for predicting heat transfer
coefficient. Above all, the model was confronted to all saturated
flow boiling experimental data obtained by the authors in part I
for water-cooled system and the data was captured with 40 %
error and MAE of 13.3 %.
Kandlikar and Balasubramanian [10] reviewed a heat
transfer correlation developed by Kandlikar [11,12] for flow
boiling in conventional size channels and they extended the
correlation to be applicable for laminar and transition flow
boiling in mini and micro-channels with a good verification of
the correlation validity. The extended correlation was presented
as follows,
, = 0.6683 0.2 (1 )0.8
+ 1058.0 0.7 (1 )0.8
(1)
, = 1.136 0.9 (1 )0.8
+ 667.2 0.7 (1 )0.8
(2)
Where hTP,NBD and hTP,CBD refer to the two phase heat
transfer coefficients for the nucleate boiling dominant and
convective boiling dominant respectively. The fluid surface
parameter is represented by FFl . They revealed that the larger of
the two values hTP,NBD and hTP,CBD is the total heat transfer
coefficient hTP for the boiling in mini-channels (200m d <
3000m) while for the micro-channels (1m d < 100m)
where ReLO 100 as it was classified by the authors, the total
heat transfer coefficient hTP = hTP,NBD considering the nucleate
boiling is the dominant heat transfer mechanism. The
correlation was confronted to the experimental data of Yen et
al. [13] with an average deviation of 17.3 %. It was observed
that the heat transfer coefficient trend versus vapor quality for
low ReLO showed decreasing in heat transfer coefficient by
increasing the vapor quality in the high quality range.
Meanwhile, the single phase heat transfer coefficient for liquid,
, can be calculated as presented in Kandlikar [11].
One of the common models of flow boiling heat transfer in
micro-channels is the three-zone model developed by Thome et
al. [14]. The three zones are classified as the vapor slug, the
elongated bubble, and the liquid slug. The thin liquid film
trapped between the elongated bubble and the channel wall was
modeled as well. Besides, they presented the model as an
equation predicts the time-average local heat transfer
coefficient of flow boiling in this regime; slug flow regime. The
heat transfer coefficient of each zone was analyzed and the
time-averaged heat transfer coefficient for one period of pair
generation was calculated based on the time that was
predicted using the model of Plesset and Zwick [3] for bubble
growth radius.
2
= 1 = [ ] (12 )
(3)
Where , is a parameter represents the liquid thermal
diffusivity. Further, the authors developed a correlation for

initial liquid film estimation based on the correlation of

Moriyama and Inoue [15] using R-113 database and it was
presented as follows.
0.84

1
o
= C (3
)
Up d
d

[(0.07Bo0.41 )8 + 0.18 ]18

(4)

Where C , is defined as an added empirical correction

factor. The model includes three empirical parameters ,
and which were optimized in extended work by Dupont et
al. [16] where it captured 70 % of 1591 experimental database
points within 30%.
It is of interest to note that the bubble frequency has an
essential effect on heat transfer coefficient in intermittent flow
regime. Ribatski et al. [17] studied the combined effect of
elongated bubble frequency and flow pattern on the heat
transfer coefficient for flow boiling in micro-scale passages.
They performed their study based on two main previous
studies. The first is the three-zone model for the micro-scale
channels in elongated bubble/slug flow regime published by
Thome et al. [14]. Second, they utilized the flow pattern map
for convective evaporation inside the micro-channels proposed
by Revellin [18] to separate experimental database of the
Acetone for elongated bubble flow regime and compared it
with that obtained by the three-zone model using the new
proposed values of the empirical parameters suggested before.
The new proposed values are = 0.40, = 0.1 , =
4653, = 1.70 and = 0.5. For the chosen experimental
database, it was found that, the three-zone model with the new
proposed empirical parameters, captured 90% of the flow
boiling database of the acetone within 30 %. However, the
reason of increase or decrease some of the proposed empirical
parameters is still unclear.
Later, Consolini and Thome [19] proposed an analytical
one dimensional heat transfer model for coalescing bubbles
flow in micro-channels subjected to a uniform heat flux. They
considered the effects of bubble coalescing dynamics and the
liquid slug mass fraction placed to liquid film during the
coalescence. The interfacial shear stress was considered as a
dominant parameter controlling the thin film movement.
However, the pressure drop effect on liquid film thickness was
not taken into account. The basic developed equation describes
transient film thickness variation in terms of flow direction was
as,

(, ) =

(5)
2
Furthermore, two main relations that describe the liquid
film thickness at the tail and the bubble nose were developed.
The model is mainly dependent of vapor quality boundaries
prediction for coalescence bubble mode ( ) which
was evaluated using a diabatic flow pattern map developed by
Ong and Thome [20]. Additionally, the conditions where the
liquid film thickness is stable or unstable at the tail and the
bubble nose were analyzed based on the value of the nondimensional mass flux parameter . The diabatic flow pattern
boundaries for R134a were estimated as,

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 = 0.763( )0.39

0.39

(6)

= 0.00014 ( (134) )
(7)
Where , is the coalescence vapor quality and , is the
annular vapor quality. The obtained model still includes some
parameters that are estimated based on empirical correlations
such as the maximum bubble frequency , and the liquid
slug fraction placed to the liquid film . The model was
confronted to 980 database points for the coalescence bubble
regime for different refrigerants and fluids. The best results
obtained by the model were for R134a data points, where 93 %
of the database points were captured with 30% error band.
The obtained trend for the average heat transfer coefficient in
this mode showed a decrease in heat transfer coefficient in the
neighborhood close to coalescence vapor quality and then
increases when the vapor quality increases. It is of importance
to mention to the presented expression of the bubble nose
location with respect to time that was recommended by the
authors for future researches particularly for varying heat flux
applications.
It is known that the elongated bubble zone in slug flow
regime represents the major characteristic of this regime.
Further, investigation the bubble velocity and its length
variation is a crucial aspect in modeling this flow pattern. The
elongated vapor bubble length effects on its relative velocity for
the flow boiling of R134a in two horizontal micro-channels
with sizes of 509 m and 790 m, in a low vapor quality range
of 0.02 to 0.19 were investigated experimentally by Agostini et
al. [21]. In addition, they proposed a theoretical model
describes the relation between the relative velocity of elongated
bubble and its length. They observed that the relative bubble
velocity ( ) increases by increasing the bubble length
until a certain bubble length where there is no a significant
change in the bubble velocity. The bubble relative velocity
increases when the channel size increases. The proposed
theoretical model was stated as follow:
2
1 (
)
.

=
(8)
1 + ( )
2
Where
= 4 . .
(9)
Co is the confinement number and C is an empirical factor
optimized as C = 0.58 for R134a.The authors confronted the
model to 484 data points obtained experimentally for R-134a
and it captured 90 % of the data within 20 % and
MAE of 8.9 %. The model can be useful for predicting bubble
frequency and transitional vapor quality range of the pattern
flow map for flow boiling in micro-channels.
Additional experimental investigation on the elongated
bubble hydrodynamic characteristics was performed by
Revellin et al. [22] where they collected 440 experimental data
and studied the relation between the elongated bubble velocity
and its length for R134-a flowing in a micro-tube with size of
= 509 for a wide range of operating conditions. In
addition they consider the effects of vapor quality, the inlet sub-

cooling, saturation temperature and the micro-evaporator length

on the elongated bubble velocity. They confronted their
experimental data to the model proposed by Agostini et al. [21]
where the model predicted 92 % of the data within =
14 %. They conclude that the elongated bubble velocity
increases with increasing the vapor quality and the bubble
length while decreases by increasing the saturation temperature.
Meanwhile, the micro-evaporator length did not show any
significant influence on the bubble velocity.
In this work, a flow boiling heat transfer model for a slug
flow regime in a circular micro-channel was developed based
on separated flow model. The obtained differential equations
were solved numerically for the refrigerant R-134a. The heat
transfer coefficient, mean liquid film velocity, and vapor core
velocity in terms of vapor quality were presented.
MODEL ANALYSIS
Heat transfer mechanisms for flow boiling in microchannels have been studied widely, as in Ref. Kandlikar [23]
and Thome and Consolini [24]. In general, there is an
agreement that the dominant heat transfer mechanism for slug
flow regime in micro-channels is the convective film
evaporation and the major heat transfer occurs in this zone
rather than the liquid slug zone. Thus, in this problem, the
elongated bubble zone is modeled using two-phase separated
flow model while the liquid slug zone is considered as a liquid
single phase. The following assumptions are the current and
previous assumptions that have been adopted for simplifying
the slug flow problem analysis:
1. The flow is a one dimensional steady fully developed flow
boiling and The model domain is discretized into two
zones. The elongated bubble zone and the liquid slug zone
as depicted in Fig. (1).
2. The elongated bubble zone is considered as a two-phase
flow and a one dimension separated flow model is applied
for this zone.
3. The liquid slug moves by a liquid velocity named as us and
this zone is treated as a single-phase flow zone.
4. The bubble moves by a mean vapor velocity named as u
and is elongated enough, thus its tail and nose effects are
neglected.
5. The liquid film trapped between the elongated bubble and
the channel wall moves by a uniform velocity named as uf
and its thickness is varied due to influence of inertia force,
interfacial stress and pressure gradient.
6. The micro-channel is subjected to a uniform and constant
heat flux.
7. The liquid slug and liquid film are at saturated status. Thus,
the liquid and vapor enthalpies derived in energy balance
are the saturated enthalpies.

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8.

The body force, virtual mass, and the interfacial waves are
neglected and the interphase surface is assumed to be
smooth.

= [ ]

(2) ,

Figure 1: schematic diagram of a slug unit cell.

A control volume element in the elongated bubble zone is

chosen and the three conservation equations, mass, momentum
and energy equations, for each phase are derived in away
similar to that presented by Ghiasiaan [25]. The chosen control
volume for deriving the mass balance equations for the vapor
core and liquid film is depicted in Fig (2). The fraction of liquid
slug flow rate feeding the liquid film is taken into account and
the mass equations of the vapor core, Eq.(10), and liquid film,
Eq.(11), can be written as follows:

[ ] =
(10)

[(1 ) ] = + ( )
(11)

Where mls , is the portion of the liquid mass transfer from

the liquid slug feeding the liquid film, and it can be estimated
as,
= (1 )( )
(12)
Considering the steady flow state and adding Eq. (10) to
Eq. (11), the mass balance equation for the whole mixture can
be given as in Eq. (13).

[ + (1 ) (2 )] = 0
(13)

The acting forces on the chosen control volume on both

liquid film and vapor core phases are shown in Fig.3. Two
forces were neglected here; the body and virtual mass forces.
The body force does not have a significant effect in micro-scale
size, so it was neglected. While the virtual mass force was
neglected for model simplifications. The momentum equations
for the elongated bubble and liquid film are written as shown in
Eqs. (14) & (15) respectively.

[] +
[ 2 ] =
(14)

2
[(1 )]
[(1 ) 2 (1 ) ( ) ] =

+
(15)

The momentum equation of the whole mixture is obtained

by adding Eq. (14) to Eq. (15) and presented as in Eq. (16).

[ 2 +2(1 ) (1 ) 2 ] =

(16)

= []

= [(1 ) ]

=0

Figure 2: a symmetric sketch of the chosen control volume

for applying mass balance.

[]

[ ]

[ 2 ]
[(1 )]
[(1 ) 2 ]

[]

[ ]
[ ]

[( ) ] [ ]
[ ]

[ 2 ]
[(1 )]
( )
[(1 ) 2 ]

=0

Figure 3: a symmetric sketch shows the forces effects on

the control volume.

The fraction of liquid mass flows from liquid slug feeding

the liquid film in the elongated bubble zone was neglected in
energy balance equation for simplification. Thus, the energy
balance equation for the whole mixture can be represented by
Eq. (17) as,
2
2

[ ( + ) + (1 ) ( + )] =

2
2

(17)
In the elongated bubble zone, four main parameters have
been chosen as main variable parameters in terms of heated
length. These parameters are bubble phasic velocity , liquid
film velocity , pressure variation in elongated bubble zone ,
and the area void fraction . The model was established based
on the above five equations: The continuity equation of the
vapor phase; Eq. (10), the momentum equation of the vapor
phase; Eq. (14), the whole mixture basic equations, continuity
equation Eq. (13), momentum Eq. (16), and energy equation
Eq. (17). The volumetric mass transfer rate at the interphase
was substituted by = ( ) in Eq. (14). Further, the
derivation of equations was extended and organized in four
main equations as follows,

+ 2(1 )
+ ( 2 + )

=0
(18)
2

2(1 )
+

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The developed system of differential algebraic equations;

equations (18),(19),(20) and (21);
are organized and
formulated in a mass matrix form. A MATLAB code was
developed for solving the set of equations using a MATLAB
function that implements explicit Runge-Kutta method. The
obtained results are affected by the initial conditioned estimated
based on the used correlation as will be explained in the
following section.
INITIAL VALUES AND CONSTITUTIVE PARAMETERS
The parameters, wall shear stress , the interfacial shear
stress , the interfacial velocity and the wall liquid friction
factor are needed to be calculated in order to solve the
required variable parameters , , , and . Thus, the
proper correlations available in the literature are used.
Furthermore, the most sensitive initial parameter affects the
obtained results is the initial liquid film thickness. Beginning
with the interfacial parameters, the interfacial velocity is
estimated to be
= (12)( + )
(22)
While the interfacial shear stress can be calculated using the
following relation,
1
2
= ( )
(23)
2
The interfacial friction factor is predicted by employing the
correlation proposed by Wallis [26].

= (1 + 300 )
(24)

Where = 0.005 for annular flow in conventional size

channels and the initial liquid film thickness is estimated using
a modified Taylors law presented in Aussilous and Quere [27].
( ) = (1.34 23 (1 + 1.34 2.523 ))
(25)
It is of importance to mention that Capillary number here is
calculated as = ( ) based on the superficial vapor
velocity . The initial vapor and liquid film phasic velocities
are calculated as the following,
= ( )
(26)
= [(1 ) (1 )]
(27)
Regards to the void fraction o , it should be noted that void
fraction estimation for two-phase flow in micro-channels is still
a challenge. Further, most of void fraction databases available

in the literature are based on visual studies and dependent of

flow pattern. However, if the bubble nose and tail effects are
neglected as a simplification, the initial void fraction for the
elongated bubble zone can be calculated as follow,
= ( 2)2 2
(28)
The wall shear stress w is represented in terms of liquid
film velocity as given in Eq. (29).
1
= 2
(29)
2
Where , is the liquid film friction factor and is determined
in terms of liquid film Reynolds number for laminar flow
= (64 )
(30)
The hydraulic diameter used in Reynolds number can be
defined in terms of void fraction as given in Eq. (31).
= (1 )
(31)
Considering the void fraction definition given in Eq. (26)
and the liquid film Reynolds number in terms of annulus
hydraulic diameter that is given in Eq. (31), the wall shear
stress for laminar flow in the elongated bubble zone can be
presented in terms of void fraction as follows,
34
=
(32)
(1 )
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The above set of differential equations Eqs. (18), (19), (20),
and (21) are solved; numerically using a MATLAB code; for
the saturated refrigerant R-134a flows in a circular microchannel with size of D = 540 m and operating conditions
similar to that adopted by Bertsch et al. [28] for Tsat = 30
and psat = 550 kPa, G = 84 kgm2 . s , q" = 52 kWm2 ; An
average bubble length of = 30 is considered. The
obtained results are depicted and discussed as follows.
The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient is predicted by
this model for extended range of vapor quality as is shown in
Fig. 4. It can be noted that the heat transfer coefficient increases
by increasing the vapor quality in the low vapor quality region
reaching the peak at = 0.1 and then decreases gradually.
Current Model

Heat transfer coefficient, [W/m2.K]

= (19)

2
2 ( )

+ ( )

=
(20)

3
3
( + 2 )
+ (1 ) ( + 2 )
2

2
2
+ [ ( + ) ( + )]
=

(21)
2
2

+( 2 2 + 2 )

Bertsch et al. [28]

Kandlikar and Balasubramanian [10]

10000
9000
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

Vapor quality

Fig. 4 Heat transfer coefficient for flow boiling of R134 . , = .

a at =
in slug flow regime
for average bubble length =
. Comparison of the
current model with Kandlikar and Balasubramanian [10]
and Bertsch et al. [28].

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Vapor velocity

Liquid film velocity

Mean velocity, [m/s]

2.5
2

1.5
1
0.5

0
0

0.1

0.2
0.3
Vapor quality

0.4

0.5

Fig. 5 depicts the vapor quality effect on both vapor and

liquid film velocities for flow boiling of R134-a, at =
. ,

= .
in slug flow regime for
average bubble length =
.

The mean vapor velocity trend predicted by the model was

compared with that obtained by Revellin et al. [22] as shown in
Fig. 6. The original experimental data points were obtained for
R134-a flowing with a high mass flux = 1000 /2 . in a
micro-tube with size of 509 subjected to maximum heat
flux equal to = 81.3 /2 and saturated pressure =
770 in the low vapor quality range (0.0 < < 0.1).
The model accurately predicted bubble velocity trend.
However, it overestimated the experimental data with =
56.7%. This can be attributed to two main parameters, the
estimated fraction of mass feeds the liquid film predicted by

Eq. (12) and the initial liquid film thickness which assumed for
these operating conditions to be = 35 .

Current model

Revellin et al. [22]

6
vapor velocity, [m/s]

The model was compared with the heat transfer correlation

developed by Kandlikar and Balasubramanian [10] and the data
base points obtained by Bertsch et al. [28] for low Reynolds
number where the nucleate boiling is dominant. It is of
importance to remind that the heat transfer coefficient is mainly
dependent of the estimated initial value of the liquid film
thickness, which is assumed to be = 18 here. The
predicted heat transfer coefficient has a trend similar to that
obtained by Bertsch et al [28], particularly at low vapor quality
range (0.0 0.1). In other words, the model predicted
well the experimental data obtained by Bertsch et al [28] within
= 8.03 % in the vapor quality range (0.0 < < 0.5).
This can be due to the fact that the model was developed
basically for the low and intermediate vapor quality range.
Meanwhile by applying Kandlikar and Balasubramanian
correlation [10] the Mean Average Error was, = 21.16 %
and showed that the heat transfer coefficient decreases fast by
increasing the vapor quality.
Fig. 5 shows the influence of vapor quality on both the
vapor mean velocity and liquid film mean velocity obtained by
the current model. It is seen that the mean vapor velocity
increases by increasing the vapor quality, while the liquid film
velocity decreases. Furthermore, the magnitude value of vapor
velocity is higher than that of the liquid film. This can be
attributed to the significant wall shear effects at low mass flux.

5
4
3
2
1
0
0

0.02

0.04
0.06
Vapor quality

0.08

0.1

Fig. 6 Shows the comparison between vapor velocity

obtained by the current model and that one revealed by
Revellin et al. [22] for flow boiling of R134-a, at =
. ,

= .
for average bubble
length =
and initial liquid film thickness =
.

CONCLUSIONS
An analytical heat transfer model of flow boiling for slug
flow in micro-channels subjected to uniform heat flux was
developed. The influence of vapor quality on heat transfer
coefficient, vapor velocity and liquid film velocity was
addressed. The following conclusions can be drawn.
1. The heat transfer coefficient for low Reynolds number
conditions increases by increasing the vapor quality in the
low vapor quality region reaching the peak at = 0.1 and
then decreases gradually.
2. The model predicted well the experimental heat transfer
data obtained by Bertsch et al [28] at low mass flux
= 84 /2 . within = 8.03 % in the vapor
quality range (0.0 < < 0.5) employing the estimated
initial liquid film thickness = 18 .
3. The vapor velocity increases linearly by increasing the
vapor quality while the liquid film velocity decreases. The
model overestimated the vapor velocity obtained by
Revellin et al. [22] at high mass flux = 1000 /2 .
within = 56.7 % in the vapor quality range (0.0 <
< 0.1) employing the estimated initial liquid film
thickness = 35 .
4. By neglecting the average fraction mass flow feeds the
liquid film which is estimated by Eq. (12), the model may
be applicable for annular flow regime.
5. The model is needed to be developed by considering the
bubble frequency, bubble and liquid slug lengths variation
in the main model equations for more realistic and reliable
results.

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