International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 202206

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Short communication

Nucleate boiling heat transfer coecients of HCFC22,

HFC134a, HFC125, and HFC32 on various enhanced tubes
Dongsoo Jung*,1, Kwangyong An, Jinseok Park
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Inha University, Incheon 402-751, South Korea
Received 17 April 2003; received in revised form 29 July 2003; accepted 29 July 2003

Abstract
In this study, nucleate boiling heat transfer coecients (HTCs) of HCFC22, HFC134a, HFC125, HFC32 were
measured on a low n, Turbo-B, and Thermoexcel-E tubes. All data were taken at the liquid pool temperature of 7  C
on horizontal tubes of 152 mm length and 18.618.8 mm outside diameter at heat uxes of 1080 kW m 2 with an
interval of 10 kW m 2 in the decreasing order of heat ux. For a plain and low n tubes, refrigerants with higher vapor
pressures showed higher nucleate boiling HTCs consistently. This was due to the fact that the wall superheat required
to activate given size cavities became smaller as pressure increased. For Turbo-B and Thermoexcel-E tubes, HFC125
showed a peculiar behavior exhibiting much reduced HTCs due to its high reduced pressure. The heat transfer
enhancement ratios of the low n, Turbo-B, and Thermoexcel-E tubes were 1.091.68, 1.775.41, 1.648.77 respectively
in the range of heat uxes tested.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Nucleate boiling; Heat transfer coecient; R22; R134a; R125; Tube; R32; Enhanced surface

HCFC22, HFC134a, HFC125 et HFC32 :

coecients de transfert de chaleur lors de lebullition nucleee
sur dierents tubes a` surface augmentee
Mots cles : Ebullition nucleee ; Coecient de transfert de chaleur ; R22 ; R134a ; R125 ; R32 ; Tube ; Surface augmentee

1. Introduction
In centrifugal chillers, ooded evaporators have been
used which are normally composed of various enhanced
tubes of special surface geometries providing a signicant increase in heat transfer performance [1,2].
Nucleate boiling heat transfer on low n tubessometimes called integral externally nned tubeshas been
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-32-860-7320; fax: +8232-868-1716.
E-mail address: dsjung@inha.ac.kr (D. Jung).
1
Associate member of IIR.
0140-7007/$35.00 # 2003 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0140-7007(03)00124-5

extensively studied by Kats and co-workers during the late

1940s and early 1950s [3,4]. Myers and Katz [4] showed
that the ns modify the boiling process to augment performance even though the increased surface area by ns is
the main cause for the heat transfer enhancement.
Since Haley and Westwater [5] conducted one of the
rst studies on ways to improve boiling performance of
extended surfaces, various attempts have been made
resulting in tubes of special surface geometries. In 1977,
Fujie et al. [6] developed a high performance boiling
tube called Thermoexcel-E which has surface pores and
sub-tunnels and in 1985, Wolverine tube [7] introduced
another tube with a grid pattern of reentrant channels

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D. Jung et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 202206

Table 1
Specications of the enhanced tubes tested

Nomenclature
A
H
q

heat transfer area (m2)

heat transfer coecient (W m
heat transfer rate (W)

Tube
2

K )

Subscripts
Plain
plain tube

called Turbo-B tube which is basically composed of

small mushroom shaped ns. Since then, Webb and Pais
[8], Chien and Webb [9], Tatara and Payvar [10] and Kim
et al. [11] studied the performance of some commercial
tubes including Turbo-B tube with various refrigerants of
CFC11, CFC12, HCFC22, HCFC123, and HFC134a.
Even though much of the heat transfer enhancement
mechanism associated with such structured surfaces has
been understood through their research, the working
uids employed are mainly ozone depleting substances
except HFC134a. Also data on Thermoexcel-E are
rarely found in the literature.
The objectives of this paper are to measure and compare nucleate boiling heat transfer coecients(HTCs) of
HCFC22, HFC32, HFC125, and HFC134a on three
dierent enhanced tubes and to provide data to the
refrigeration industry for the design and manufacture of
high eciency evaporators. In fact, this is a sequel paper
to our previous work for the nucleate boiling heat
transfer on a smooth plain tube with eight pure refrigerants of various vapor pressures [12].

Plain Low n

Turbo-B

Thermoexcel-E

18.8

18.6

Outside diameter 19.0

(mm)

18.8

fpm (fpi)

1023 (26) 1653 (42) 1929 (49)

Fin height
(mm)

1.21

0.44

0.49

The measurement errors were estimated by the

method suggested by Kline and McClintock [13]. In
general, the measurement errors were less than 6% for a
plain and low n tubes at all heat uxes. For Turbo-B
tube, the errors were 14% at 10 kW m 2 and less than
9% at heat uxes of 2080 kW m 2. Finally, for Thermoexcel-E tube, the errors were 18 and 11% at heat
uxes of 10 and 20 kW m 2 respectively and less than
9% at heat uxes of 3080 kW m 2.

3. Results and discussion

2. Experiments

Figs. 14 and Table 2 show the HTCs of various

refrigerants as a function of heat ux obtained on a
plain, low n, Turbo-B, and Thermoexcel-E tubes. The
validity of the plain tube data and comparison with
other data and correlations were discussed in our previous paper in detail [12] and hence will not be discussed
here. Webb and Pais [8] reported that HTCs of
HFC134a and HCFC22 on a Turbo-B tube at 4.44  C at
heat uxes of 1060 kW m 2 are roughly 10 00020 500
and 11 00022 000 W m 2 K 1 respectively. On the
other hand, the present data for HFC134a and HCFC22

In this work, nucleate boiling HTCs of HCFC22,

HFC32, HFC125, and HFC134a are measured on three
enhanced surfaces of outside diameter of 18.618.8 mm
using the same experimental apparatus described in Ref.
[12]. A cartridge heater was used to generate uniform
heat ux on the tube. Data were taken in the order of
decreasing heat ux from 80 kW m 2 to 10 kW m 2
with an interval of 10 kW m 2 in the pool temperature
at 7  C. Since Ref. [12] contains all the details of the test
apparatus, manufacture of tube specimens, measurements, experimental procedure, data reduction scheme,
and fouling eect, they will not be presented again here.
In this work, only the specications of the enhanced
tubes and the measurement error will be reported.
Three types of enhanced tubes are employed for heat
transfer measurements: a low n tube of 1023 ns per
meter (fpm) [equivalent to 26 ns per inch (fpi)], Turbo-B
tube, and Thermoexcel-E tube. Table 1 lists specications of the three enhanced tubes.

Fig. 1. Nucleate boiling HTCs of refrigerants on a plain tube.

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D. Jung et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 202206

Fig. 2. Nucleate boiling HTCs of refrigerants on a low n tube.

Fig. 3. Nucleate boiling HTCs of refrigerants on a Turbo-B

tube.

on a Turbo-B tube are 10 06021 372 and 14 82222 438

W m 2 K 1 in the same heat ux range respectively.
Considering various factors aecting nucleate boiling
heat transfer such as detailed tube specications, surface
condition and aging etc., the present data for Turbo-B
tube seem to be in good agreement with Webb and Pais
data [8]. On the other hand, Hitachi Cable [14] reported
that HTCs of HCFC22 on Thermoexcel-E tube at 1.0  C
at heat uxes of 2080 kW m 2 are 21 00026 700 W
m 2 K 1. The present data for HCFC22 on Thermoexcel-E tube are 24 54426 339 W m 2 K 1 in the same
heat ux range indicating a good agreement with Hitachi Cables data. These comparisons conrm the validity
of the present data.

Fig. 4. Nucleate boiling HTCs of refrigerants on a Thermoexcel-E tube.

For plain and low n tubes, HTCs of various refrigerants increase in the order of vapor pressure for a given
heat ux conrming the nucleate boiling theory that the
wall superheat required to activate given size cavities
becomes smaller as pressure increases [15]. In fact,
Cooper [16] and Jung et al. [12] showed that nucleate
boiling HTCs are directly proportional to the reduced
pressure. Even though HFC125 has a higher reduced
pressure than HFC32, its other thermophysical properties such as liquid thermal conductivity and viscosity
aecting nucleate boiling heat transfer greatly are not as
good as those of HFC32 and hence its HTCs are close
to those of HFC32.
On the other hand, for Turbo-B and Thermoexcel-E
tubes, HFC134a, HCFC22, and HFC32 showed a normal behavior associated with vapor pressure as with the
plain and low n tubes. HFC125, however, showed a
peculiar behavior exhibiting much reduced HTCs. This
phenomenon is more pronounced with Thermoexcel-E
tube such that HTCs of HFC125 are even lower than
those of HFC134a, the lowest vapor pressure uid
among the refrigerants tested. This also can be
explained with the reduced pressure. Thome [1] showed
that at high reduced pressure, the relative advantage of
using enhanced boiling surfaces is less since nucleation
sites are already activated due to the decrease in
required nucleation superheat. Therefore, the thermal
mechanism of an enhancement with gap or pore sizes
optimized for reduced pressures less than 0.1 may not be
eective at high reduced pressure.
In fact, Turbo-B and Thermoexcel-E tubes used in
this study were designed to be used with HCFC22 and
CFC12 whose average reduced pressure is 0.11 at 7  C.
The reduced pressure of HFC125, however, is 0.2292,
the highest among the refrigerants tested. Hence, the

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D. Jung et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 202206

Table 2
Measured heat transfer coecients of various refrigerants on four tubes in W m
Tube

Refrigerant

Heat ux (kW m 2)
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Plain

HCFC22
HFC32
HFC125
HFC134a

2738
3987
4465
2218

4308
6747
6927
3555

5636
8711
8680
4739

6864
10 585
10 131
5790

8045
12 140
11 315
6744

9184
13 791
12 393
7785

10 331
15 080
13 465
8547

11 570
16 427
14 659
9505

Low n

HCFC22
HFC32
HFC125
HFC134a

4587
5603
4943
3460

6596
8752
7528
5562

8047
11 031
9816
7110

9266
12 954
11 654
8377

10 377
14 459
13 292
9301

11 369
15 865
14 970
10 188

12 387
17 059
16 405
11 128

13 288
18 274
17 749
12 046

Turbo-B

HCFC22
HFC32
HFC125
HFC134a

14 822
20 123
11 902
10 060

17 518
24 606
15 340
14 483

19 199
26 204
17 603
17 101

20 466
28 465
19 619
18 944

21 573
29 879
21 374
20 252

22 438
31 447
23 016
21 372

23 129
32 845
24 660
22 202

23 729
34 219
25 963
23 046

Thermoexcel-E

HCFC22
HFC32
HFC125
HFC134a

21 219
25 743
16 082
19 442

24 544
31 710
19 841
22 921

26 238
32 652
21 896
24 695

27 166
32 925
22 994
25 204

27 238
33 069
23 811
25 378

27 131
33 202
24 224
25 136

26 843
33 392
24 316
24 823

26 339
34 005
24 056
24 330

sub-tunnels and pores of Thermoexcel-E tube [6]

and mushroom like integral low ns of Turbo-B tube [7]
do not contribute to the heat transfer enhancement
for HFC125 as they do for low reduced pressure
refrigerants.
The heat transfer enhancement ratio, h/hPlain, is
dened as the HTC of an enhanced tube divided by that
of the plain tube at the same heat ux. For all refrigerants and enhanced tubes, the heat transfer enhancement
ratio shows the highest value at the lowest heat ux and
decreases as the heat ux increases. This implies that
surface geometries of various tubes help activate the
nucleation sites more at low heat uxes than at high
heat uxes. The heat transfer enhancement ratios of the
low n, Turbo-B, and Thermoexcel-E tubes are 1.09
1.68, 1.775.41, 1.648.77 respectively.
Thermoexcel-E shows the highest heat transfer
enhancement ratio of 2.568.77 for HFC134a, the lowest vapor pressure refrigerant. This is due to the active
working of the reentrant cavities of Thermoexcel-E tube
at low reduced pressure. For a low pressure refrigerant,
the bubbles and the superheat required to activate the
sites are large and hence the eect of the sub-tunnels
and surface pores to lower the superheat requirement
and to increase the bubble generation frequency
becomes more pronounced.

Thermoexcel-E tubes and following conclusions were

drawn.
(1) For a plain and low n tubes, refrigerants with
higher vapor pressures showed higher nucleate boiling
HTCs consistently. This was due to the fact that the
wall superheat required to activate given size cavities
became smaller as pressure increased.
(2) For Turbo-B and Thermoexcel-E tubes, HFC125
which has the highest reduced pressure showed a
peculiar behavior exhibiting much reduced HTCs. For
HFC125, the relative advantage of using enhanced
boiling tubes with sub-tunnels and small ns was less
since bubbles are already generated due to the
decrease in nucleation superheat as well as easy activation of cavities at high reduced pressure.
(3) The heat transfer enhancement ratios of the low
n, Turbo-B, and Thermoexcel-E tubes were 1.09
1.68, 1.775.41, 1.648.77 respectively. Even though
Thermoexcel-E showed the highest HTCs, the rate of
increase in heat transfer with an increase in heat ux is
small due possibly to the blockage of the cold liquid
entering the pores and tunnels.

Acknowledgements
4. Conclusions
In this study, nucleate boiling HTCs of four pure
refrigerants of HCFC22, HFC134a, HFC125, HFC32
were measured on a 1023 fpm low n, Turbo-B, and

This work was supported by Korea Institute of

Science and Technology (KIST) fund for the protection
of ozone layer. Drs. B.G. Lee and J.S. Lim at KIST
supported this work.

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D. Jung et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 202206

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