Accepted Manuscript

Title: Investigation on the effect of ejector liquid recirculation system on the

performance of falling-film water chiller with r134a

Author: YingLin Li, Ke Wang, Wei Wu, XueYing Xia, BaoLian Niu,
ZhongBin Zhang

PII: S0140-7007(16)30375-9
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2016.11.009
Reference: JIJR 3477

To appear in: International Journal of Refrigeration

Received date: 7-8-2016

Revised date: 6-10-2016
Accepted date: 14-11-2016

Please cite this article as: YingLin Li, Ke Wang, Wei Wu, XueYing Xia, BaoLian Niu,
ZhongBin Zhang, Investigation on the effect of ejector liquid recirculation system on the
performance of falling-film water chiller with r134a, International Journal of Refrigeration
(2016), http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2016.11.009.

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Investigation on the effect of ejector liquid recirculation system on the
performance of falling-film water chiller with R134a

Li YingLin,Wang Ke, Wu Wei, Xia XueYing, Niu BaoLian, Zhang ZhongBin*

(Engineering Laboratory for Energy System Process Conversion & Emission Control Technology of

Jiangsu Province , Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210042, China)

*Corresponding author: Tel.: +86 025 85481140.

E-mail address: ylli@njnu.edu.cn (Y.L. Li).

Highlights
Liquid refrigerant recirculation system based ejector is proposed.
A test facility of horizontal-tube falling-film water chiller is presented.
Impact from liquid recirculating ratio on evaporator capacity is performed.
The optimum of liquid recirculating ratio is about 1.2.
Trying to wipe out dryout patch completely is not commendatory.

ABSTRACT

To analyze the influence of liquid spraying flow rate on the performance of a falling-film evaporator with

R134a, the finite difference model of the horizontal-tube falling-film evaporator is established, and a

falling-film air-cooled water chiller with ejector liquid recirculation system (LRS) is presented; then the

comparison between numerical simulation and experimental tests are performed. The analysis results show

that the experimental and numerical evaporating capacities increase 9.5% and 6.7%, respectively, when the

liquid recirculating ratio Rl increases from 1.0 to 1.21; and the deviation between the experimental and

numerical capacity of the evaporator is about 3.3%. And that the evaporated liquid flow rate raises quickly

first and then increases slightly with the increase of Rl. Moreover, the results show that the optimum value

of Rl is about 1.2, the corresponding value of integrated falling-film factor with about 0.85. This suggests

that attempting to eliminate completely the dryout patch outside of tubes is unadvisable.
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Keywords: horizontal-tube falling film; ejector; liquid recirculating ratio; integrated falling-film factor

Nomenclature subscripts
2 -1
A surface area per unit length, m m 1 state point 1
AFE air-cooled finned exchanger 2 state point 2
AFWC air-cooled falling-film water chiller 3 state point 3
COP coefficient of performance 4 state point 4
EMV electromagnetic valve 5 state point 5
FFE falling-film heat exchanger 6 state point 6
h heat transfer coefficient, W m-2 k-1, 7 state point 7
specific enthalpy, J kg-1
Kff falling-film factor cond condenser
LRS liquid recirculation system cw chilled water
m mass flow rate, kg s-1 i Inlet, internal surface of tube
q heat flux, W m-2 l liquid
R liquid recirculating ratio mot motive port of the ejector
t temperature, nb nucleate boiling
u entrainment ratio of the ejector o outlet, outside surface of tube
V volumetric flow rate, m3 s-1 r refrigerant
x degree of refrigerant dryness suc suction port of the ejector
Greek symbols thres threshold of dryout onset
non-dimensional falling-film factor u unit volume
integrated falling-film factor v vapor
surface tension, N m w tube wall
density, kg m-3

1. Introduction

Evaporators in refrigeration systems can commonly be divided according to the method of liquid supply,

into direct-expansion, flooded and overfeed evaporators. A direct-expansion evaporator is usually fed by an

expansion valve that adjusts the refrigerant flow rate, the refrigerant which leaves the evaporator is

superheated, and only vapor flows to the compressor. Flooded evaporators are completely filled with liquid

refrigerant, so that the entire internal surface of tubes is wet thus improving the heat transfer coefficient.

For overfeed evaporators, part of liquid boils in the evaporator and the rest which is always the mixture of

vapor and liquid, leaves the evaporator, and the mass flow rate flowing through the evaporator is higher

Page 2 of 30
than through the compressor or condenser.

In a refrigeration system with overfeed evaporator, saturated liquid from the separator is recirculated

to overfeed the evaporator, and a common practice is to use a mechanical pump as a liquid recirculation

component, described by Bivens et al. (1997) and Giuliani et al. (1999). But the use of pumps increases the

facility investment and operation complexity and maintenance costs. An alternative to the use of pumps in

liquid overfeed systems is the use of ejectors. The principal advantage of this option is its simplicity and

avoidance of mobile parts. In addition, ejectors are more economical compared to pumps. Recently ejectors

and their applications in refrigeration cycles have been widely studied, and the reviews performed by Chen

et al. (2013), Chen et al. (2015) and Besagni et al. (2016) can be cited.

However, studies using the ejector to recirculate refrigerant liquid are fairly limited: Radchenko (1985)

studied a refrigerant recirculation system using R22, in which an ejector was used to feed a plate freezer of

eight freezing stations, the results included data of the liquid collected in the liquid/vapor separator. Dopazo

and Seara (2011) dealt with the experimental performance evaluation of an ejector in an overfeed NH3 plate

evaporator, the experimental result showed the entrainment ratio of liquid-liquid ejector was between 2.1

and 2.67, and the evaporating capacity varied from 9.48 kW to 18.37 kW. Li et al. (2014) experimentally

investigated an R134a ejector recirculation cycle with a falling-film evaporator and obtained capacity and

COP enhancements of 4.8% and 2.4%, respectively, at an optimum recirculation ratio of about 1.13.

Minetto et al. (2014) observed an experimental COP improvement about 13% with a CO2 cycle which was

operated as an ejector recirculation cycle using a round-tube-plate-fin evaporator. Lawrence and Elbel

(2015) presented a numerical investigation on the performance of the ejector recirculation cycle and the

standard ejector cycle, and the analysis used a microchannel evaporator and refrigerant R134a, R410A and

CO2. The results showed that the fluids which had lower throttling loss (R134a) should use the ejector to

improve evaporator performance through liquid recirculation. Lawrence and Elbel (2016) presented an
3

Page 3 of 30
experimental study on vapor-compression cycles using the work recovered by an ejector to provide liquid

recirculation with microchannel evaporator and refrigerant R410A. And the ejector recirculation cycle and

the standard two-phase ejector cycle were compared to each other and to a baseline DX cycle without an

ejector. The results showed that COP improvement of up to 16% with the ejector recirculation cycle and

9% with the standard ejector cycle was obtained, but the COP of each cycle was very dependent on

evaporator design.

Table.1 summarizes the information that could be found in the open literature on ejector liquid

recirculation system. It is difficult to directly compare the different studies shown in the table because each

study uses different evaporator as well as different working fluid and different operating conditions. Most

studies do show that the ejector liquid recirculation system (LRS) can improve evaporator performance.

And it can be also seen that the evaporator structure is one important factor which influences the amount of

COP improvement that can be achieved with an ejector LRS.

The ejector LRS is dramatically suitable for refrigeration systems with a horizontal-tube falling-film

evaporator because that the increase of refrigerant spraying flow rate in the horizontal-tube falling-film

evaporator is favorable: the bottom tubes in the horizontal-tube falling-film evaporator may suffer from

dryout because the liquid flow rates gradually decrease due to evaporation while flowing downwards.

Lorenz and Yung (1982) identified the critical Reynolds number of 300, below which the falling film

evaporation coefficients on tube arrays were less than those on a single tube. Moreover, when the Reynolds

number was small, the bottom tubes of the array would suffer more from partial dryout than those on higher

layers. Since the dry areas transferred the heat only by natural convection, a sudden drop of heat transfer

coefficients was observed both on smooth tube arrays by Fujita and Tsutsui (1998) and Ribatski and Thome

(2007), and enhanced ones by Roques and Thome (2007).

To date, few studies have investigated the performance of a prototype of falling-film water chiller with
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Page 4 of 30
an ejector LRS. Thus, the objective of this study is to analyze the influence of liquid spraying rate over the

falling-film heat transfer by employing the method of experimental test and theory model, and further to

discuss the reason why there is still dryout onset outside of tubes even with a bigger liquid recirculation

ratio by analyzing a non-dimensional falling-film factor.

The outline of this paper is as follows. First the finite difference model of the horizontal-tube

falling-film evaporator is established; then the experimental device is presented as well as experimental test

performed; finally results and discussion are provided, also conclusions are drawn at the end.

2. Mathematical model

2.1 Grid of the tube bundles

Figs.1a shows the sketch of passage and column of tube bundles adopted in this paper, the grid points about

j and p point to the column and flowing passage in the tube bundles, respectively. It should be noted that

there are totally 15 columns in the tube bundles, and each column has 4 tubes and 4 passages. Figs.1b

presents the grid of a single tube based on the finite difference model, and the grid point i denotes each

discrete element along the tube length direction. Since each column is similar to other one, as shown in

Fig.1c, selecting any one of columns to calculate is enough on the condition of uniform liquid distribution

on the top of tube bundles.

2.2 Model description

Falling film evaporation on tube arrays is more complicated than on a single tube, the liquid flow rate may

become less at the lower tubes because of evaporation process, and the temperature of chilled water alters

along the tubes due to the heat exchanging process between the liquid refrigerant and chilled water.

Therefore, the heat transfer performance may be affected by different tube arrays. In this study, the

mathematical model is based on following assumptions,

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Page 5 of 30
 1) The horizontal-tube falling-film evaporator is adiabatic from the outside surroundings.

2) The liquid refrigerant is saturated at the inlet of the evaporator, and refrigerant vapor is saturated at

the outlet of the evaporator.

3) The falling film evaporating process is in the steady state.

4) The liquid distribution is exactly uniform on the top of the tube array.

5) The influence of upflow gas on the refrigerant falling-film heat transfer is neglected.

Based on the energy balance of the discrete element, as shown in Fig.1b, for the chilled water inside

the horizontal tube,

t u , cw o t u , cw i q o Ao dx ( m cw C p , cw ) (1)

where qo is the local heat flux based on the outside surface of the tube; Ao is the outside surface area per

unit length; dx is the length of discrete element along the tube length direction; mcw is the mass flow rate of

chilled water in the tube; Cp,cw is the specific heat of chilled water; tu,cwi and tu,cwo are the inlet and outlet

temperature of chilled water in the discrete element, respectively.

For the refrigerant outside of the horizontal tube,

t u , w o q o h r , o t eva (2)

where hr,o is the local heat transfer coefficient of refrigerant falling film of the discrete element; tu,wo and teva

are the wall temperature outside the tube and evaporating temperature, respectively. In this paper teva keeps

the constant of 4.8 .

As shown in Fig.2, the local heat flux qo can also be expressed as,

Ao 1 w 2 Ao
qo t ( ( ri ) ) (3)
Ai hcw , i w Ao Ai

where hcw,i is the local heat transfer coefficient of chilled water inside the tube of the discrete element; Ai is

the internal surface area per unit length; ri is the resistance of inside surfaces due to fouling of the heat

Page 6 of 30
transfer surface, in this paper, it equals to 310-5 m2W-1; w is the thermal conductivity of copper wall

with 393 W-1m -1; w is the thickness of tube wall; t is the log mean temperature difference and is

defined as,

( t u , cw i t u , w o ) ( t u , cw o t u , w o )
t (4)
( t u , cw i t u , w o )
ln
( t u , cw o t u , w o )

The local heat transfer coefficient of chilled water inside the enhanced tube, hcw,i, can adopted the Bell

and Muller (2001) correlation,

cw cw
h cw , i c 0
0 .8 0 .3 3 3 0 .1 4
R e cw P rcw ( ) (5)
d in w

Where cw is the thermal conductivity of chilled water inside the enhanced tube; din is the inner diameter of

enhanced tube; Recw and Prcw are the Reynolds number and Prandtl number of chilled water, respectively;

cw is the kinetic viscosity of chilled water; and w is the kinetic viscosity of chilled water based on the

temperature of inside tube wall; c0 is a constant concerning the tube type, for the enhanced tube Turbo-B

adopted in this paper, it equals to 0.073.

A falling film factor Kff is defined as,

h r , o K ff h nb (6)

where hnb is the heat transfer coefficient of nucleate boiling at the same heat flux, and it can be obtained

from Webb and Pais (1992) correlation,

h nb a1 ( q o / 1000)
a2
(7)

In this equation, for the enhanced tube of Turbo-B with the refrigerant R134a, the constants a1 and a2

are 5120 and 0.43481, respectively. Roques and Thome (2007) presented the following correlation for

predicting the value of Kff in which the influences o fheat flux and tube pitch are included,

Page 7 of 30
 tp qo qo
(1 b1 )( b 2 b3 ( ) b3 (
2
K ff
) ) (8)
2 2 .2 5 q cr q cr

In this equation, tp is the minimum tube pitch of tube bundles. For the enhanced tubes of Turbo-B, the

constants b1-b4 are -0.361, 2.891, -16.314 and 59.906, respectively. To obtain a non-dimensional correlation,

the heat flux is normalized with critical heat flux of nucleate boiling given by the Kutateladze (1948)

correlation,

q cr 0.131 v hlv ( g ( l v ) l ))
0.5 0.25
(9)

where v and l are the densities of saturated vapor and liquid of refrigerant, respectively; hlv is the latent

heat of refrigerant; l is the surface tension of liquid refrigerant; and g is the local gravitational acceleration.

During the falling-film evaporating process, if the refrigerant liquid flow rate is insufficient, the liquid

flowing around a lower tube may experience local dryout or film breakdown, and the Reynolds number at

the dryout threshold is proportional to the heat flux (Roques and Thome, 2007),

Rethres 2( c q thres d ) (10)

where Rethres is the threshold Reynolds number of dryout onset; the constants c and d are 0.00292 and 29.8

for the enhanced tube of Turbo-B, respectively.

However, if the local refrigerant Reynolds number is below the threshold Reynolds number, the falling

film heat transfer coefficient decreases rapidly with the liquid spraying flow rate due to the extending of

dryout patch. In this case, the heat transfer process can be calculated as,

R er qo
(
2
) (11)
R e th res q th ers

Combining Eqs. (10) and (11) leads to the expression,

2 2
2 cq o 2 dq o
q thers q thres 0
2
(12)
Re r Re r

Knowing the local qo and Rer, it is thus possible to find out qthres. Therefore, while the dryout patch

Page 8 of 30
outside the tube exists, the falling film factor with partial dryout, Kff,dry, needs to be revised as,

R er
k ff , d ry ( ) k ff (13)
R e th res

where Rer is the local liquid film Reynolds number, it can be defined as,

2 r
R er (14)
r

where, r is the local mass flow rate per unit length on both sides of tube; and r is the dynamic viscosity of

liquid refrigerant.

At this moment, the local heat transfer coefficient of refrigerant falling film hr,o with dryout patch

existing can be adjusted as,

hr , o K ff , dry
h nb (15)

For further analyzing the dryout patch and position outside of enhanced tubes and reasonably

evaluating the influence of dryout patch on the falling-film heat transfer, this paper defines the

non-dimensional falling-film factor and integrated falling-film factor as,

1 R e r R e thres
(16)

k ff , dry k ff R e r R e thres

n m

( i, p
) /( n m ) (17)
i 1 p 1

where is the non-dimensional falling-film factor of discrete element, as shown in Fig.1c; is the

integrated falling-film factor; n and m are the discrete element number of single tube and the flowing

passage of chilled water in the tube bundles, respectively. In the paper, m equals to 4, and n will be stated in

Section 4.1.

2.3 Logic algorithm

The detailed flowchart of numerical calculation can be seen in Fig.3, and the logic algorithm of the

Page 9 of 30
model is supplied as follows.

Step 1: Input of parameter, such as evaporating temperature, inlet temperature and flow rate of chiller

water, unit grid number along the length direction, et al; Initialization of unit volume, p=1, i=1, and

assigning the initial value for the first unit volume, such as inlet temperature and flow rate of chiller water,

the liquid spraying rate outside of tube; assuming the heat load of single tube as 0.85 kW, and obtaining the

initial value of heat flux qo1.

Step 2: according to Eq (1), calculating the tu,cwo of unit volume; and according to Eq (2), calculating

the tu,wo of unit volume; it should be noted that while calculating, if no dryout patch, the value of hr,o is

determined by Eqs (6)-(8); if dryout patch existing, the value of hr,o is determined by Eqs (7) and (15); then

substituting the new tu,cwo and tu,wo into Eq (3), calculating the new value of heat flux qo2.

Step 3: Convergence judgment, if the relative difference between qo1 and qo2 is below 10-4, step 4 is

executed; if not, qo1= (qo1+ qo2)/2, step 2 is executed.

Step 4: Loop judgment, if all the unit volumes of tube bundles in the evaporator are calculated, step 5

is executed, if not, p=p+1 or i=i+1, and then step 2 is executed.

Step 5: Output of calculating results.

3. Experimental rig description and data reduction

3.1 System description

The schematic diagram of the air-cooled falling-film water chiller (AFWC) is shown in Fig.4. The system

mainly consists of the variable speed scroll compressor (CP), falling-film heat exchanger (FFE), air-cooled

finned-tube exchanger (AFE), ejector (EJ), gas-liquid separator (GS), oil separator (OS), electromagnetic

valve (EMV), expansion valve (EV), flow meter (FM) and manual regulating valve (RV), etc. The

refrigerant at point 1 flows from the AFE to the dry filter, and then divides into two, one branch goes

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Page 10 of 30
through the expansion valve; here the refrigerant is throttled to point 2. As shown in Fig.5, the other flows

through the manual regulative value into the ejector to be used as the working fluid, and expands into the

fluid with high velocity at the nozzle exit (point 6), then the high velocity fluid induces the low-pressure

suction fluid point 5 from the bottom of the FFE to mix together (point 6a) in the mixing section of ejector;

afterwards, the refrigerant flows from the mixing section into the diffuser of ejector, its velocity decreases

and its pressure increases (point 7). Then the refrigerant (point 7) at the exit of the ejector combines the

refrigerant point 2 to spray in the top tubes of FFE. The evaporated saturated gas point 3 flowing from the

evaporator enters the compressor. Lastly the high pressure gas point 4 from the compressor is condensed

into point 1 by the AFE. It should be noted that the AFWC differs from conventional water chillers due to

the refrigerant liquid recirculation system (LRS) depicted in Fig.6; and that the scroll compressor can

control and regulate its speed by using a frequency converter.

The tube bundles in the falling-film evaporator, as shown in Figs.1a and 6, which comprises 4 flowing

passages, is housed in a 1505 mm long377 mm diameter outer shell with 6 additional 64 mm sight

windows for viewing at different positions, the wall thickness of outer shell is 9 mm. The total 64 tubes in

the bundles are arrayed as the top passage with 15 tubes, the second passage with 15 tubes as well as the

third with 15 tubes, and the bottom passage with 19 tubes; here the 4 tubes in the lowest row of the bottom

passage are used as flooded region, the rest 15 tubes of the bottom passage is used as falling-film region, as

shown in Fig.1a. It should be noted that the number of passages in chilled water side is 4, and that the

chilled water flows from the top passage to the bottom one. All tubes in each passage are installed by

equilateral triangle arrangement with a center-to-center pitch of 25 mm.

Special care has been taken in the distributor design in order to achieve uniform liquid distribution on

the top tubes. The primary distributor is a self-designed component which utilizes a long horizontal tube

with 2 additional parallel short tubes, and there are many small holes which are perforated at the bottom of
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Page 11 of 30
horizontal tubes. The second distributing tray, as shown in Fig.6, which is located 10 mm above the top of

the first row of tube bundles, is designed to distribute refrigerant liquid on the tubes, and the rectangular

tray has 15 rows of 78 holes (on a longitudinal 18 mm pitch transverse 12.5 mm pitch) with perforated 2

mm diameter holes (a total of 1170). The height of the partition baffles in the tray is 20 mm.

The use of enhanced surfaces can enhance heat transfer coefficients in comparison with those obtained

on plain surfaces, and improve the liquid refrigerant distribution. The effective length of single enhance

tube is 1425 mm, and the enhanced external and internal surface is shown in Fig.7, the main structural

parameters of the enhanced tubes are listed in Table.2.

Fig.8a presents the image of the EJ which mainly consists of the nozzle, suction chamber, mixing

section and diffuser, and Fig.8b is the installation drawing of processed ejector. The inner diameter of the

nozzles outlet is limited as 1.6 mm, and the detailed structural parameters have been listed in Table.3.

3.2 Data reduction

The mass and energy balances on the AFWC system are given as,

m r ,7 h r ,1 m m ot / h r ,7 h r ,5 m suc / h r ,7 (18)

The motive and suction mass flow rates at both motive and suction port of the ejector are given by Eqs.

(19) and (20). Here, the refrigerant volumetric flow rates are experimentally measured and the densities can

be obtained indirectly from the saturated evaporating pressure of the FFE, the pressure and temperature

measurements of the AFE.

m m ot m r ,1 m r , 2 V m ot cond (19)

m suc m r ,5 V suc suc (20)

The total refrigerant mass flow rate in the inlets of FFE is different from that of the air-cooled finned

condenser, and in this study the refrigerant liquid recirculating ratio Rl is given by,

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Page 12 of 30
 m suc m cond (1 x r ,2 )
Rl (2
m cond (1 x r ,2 )

1)

The entrainment ratio of the ejector can be defined as,

u m suc / m m ot V suc suc /(V m ot cond ) (22)

3.3 Experimental facility

In order to analyze the effect of refrigerant liquid recirculation system on the performance of the air-cooled

falling-film water chiller, a test facility is set up, as shown in Fig.9; in this paper the facility is used to test

the AFWC performance at the cooling working condition. Once all temperature, pressure and flow rate

measurements are stabilized, the experimental data are collected during a time space of about ten minutes,

at intervals of approximately 120 s. The data in the following figures are the average values of three groups

of data in the steady state. All the experimental process was finished in an artificial environment chamber.

The performance of AFWC prototype is tested on the condition that the inlet temperature of cooling air is

dry-bulb 35 and wet-bulb 28 , the inlet temperature of chilled water of 12 , and chilled water flow

rate of 2.63 kg s-1; and during the experimental test, the saturated evaporating temperature in the FFE

maintains constant of 4.8 by regulating the speed of compressor and the opening of expansive valve.

K-type thermocouples are used to measure inlet and outlet temperatures of chilled water, whose

accuracy is 0.1 K. The pressure is measured by a transducer with an accuracy of 1% of the span. The

R134a volumetric flow rates Vsuc, Vmot and Vcond are measured by using electromagnetic flow meters with

an accuracy of 1% of the span. The volumetric flows of chilled water are measured by using

electromagnetic flow meters with an accuracy of 2.5% of the span, and detailed measuring equipments are

listed in Table.4. The measurement uncertainty of evaporating capacity is 3.77%; the uncertainty of

refrigerant dryness degree is 7.21%; and the uncertainty of refrigerant liquid recirculating ratio Rl is about
13

Page 13 of 30
0.38%.

4. Results

4.1 Estimation of model convergence and stability

Table.5 lists the numerical simulating results of different numbers of discrete element in a single enhanced

tube. As seen from Table.5, as the liquid recirculation flow rate is constant, the numerical simulating results

are almost not affected when the discrete element number varies in the range of 20-100, therefore, in this

paper, the number of discrete elements (n, as shown in Equation 17) in a single tube equals to 20.

4.2 Effect of liquid recirculation ratio

The evaporated liquid flow rate and liquid recirculating ratio varying with liquid recirculation flow rate are

shown in Fig.10. The liquid recirculating ratio increases quickly as the liquid recirculation flow rate

increases; and the flow rate of evaporated liquid refrigerant is sharply risen first in the range of 0.28-0.34

kgs-1, and then slightly increased in the range of 0.34-0.38 kgs-1 when the liquid recirculation flow rate

increases, which means that there should be a suitable value of liquid recirculation flow rate for the given

tube bundles.

Fig.11 depicts the variations of evaporator capacity and chilled water outlet temperature with the

liquid recirculation flow rate. It can be seen that the increase of liquid recirculation flow rate in the range of

0.28-0.38 kgs-1 determines a slight decrease of the outlet temperature of chiller water, and also that the

evaporator capacity drastically increases first and then slowly rises with the increase of liquid recirculation

flow rate. It means that an extremely overfed flow rate of refrigerant liquid is not valid to further heighten

the evaporator capacity, this because the dryout patches outside the tube gradually vanish while increasing

the liquid circulation flow rate.

In Fig.12, The evaporated liquid flow rate and integrated falling-film factor varying with the liquid
14

Page 14 of 30
recirculating ratio are shown. It can be seen that the integrated falling-film factor, , increases with the

increase of the liquid recirculating ratio, Rl; and that shows a peak value of 0.978 for the certain Rl of 1.41.

And from the Eqs (15) and (16), It is worth pointing out that the value of less than 1.0 means the outside

surface of tubes exists dryout patch, which implies that while the Rl below the value of 1.41, there is still

dryout onset outside of the enhanced tubes, in other words, wiping out the dryout patch completely needs a

greater Rl value than 1.41. However, from Fig.12, we can find out that while the value of Rl more than 1.2,

the evaporated refrigerant liquid raises slightly with the increase of Rl, in other words, employing a bigger

Rl value of more than 1.2 is not significant. All this suggests that the optimum of Rl is about 1.2, the

corresponding value of about 0.85.

4.3 Comparison between numerical and experimental results

The experimental results of liquid flow rates in the FFE and ejector varying with the liquid recirculating

ratio are shown in Fig.13. The evaporated refrigerant liquid flow rate rises obviously when the liquid

recirculating ratio increases in the range of 1.0-1.14; but the evaporated refrigerant liquid flow rate is nearly

not affected by the sequential increase in the range of 1.14-1.21. From Fig.13, it can be seen that the

maximum of motive flow rate and suction flow rate in the ejector is about 0.0294 and 0.0329 kgs-1,

respectively; and that the average entrainment ratio of the ejector is about 1.10.

The comparison of evaporator capacity between the numerical simulation and experimental test is

shown in Fig.14. It can be seen from Fig.14 that the maximum experimental capacity and numerical

capacity of the evaporator are 56.97 and 58.85 kW, respectively; and that the experimental and numerical

evaporating capacity achieves an improvement of 9.5% and 6.7% following the Rl increase in the range of

1.0-1.21, respectively. The corresponding deviation between the experimental and numerical capacity of the

evaporator is about 3.3%, which may be due to that the numerical simulation assumes the liquid

15

Page 15 of 30
distributing process is completely uniform, yet completely uniform liquid-distributing process can not be

obtained by liquid distributors in the test facility.

From Fig.14, it can also be found out the variation trend of experimental capacity of evaporator with

the liquid recirculating ratio is approximately consistent with that of numerical capacity of evaporator

varying with the liquid recirculating ratio, which means increasing the liquid spraying flow rate in a certain

range is valid for enhancing the evaporator capacity. On the other hand, when the Rl value of more than

1.14, the experimental evaporator capacity is nearly not affected by the increase of Rl value, but the

numerical one is still slowly increased. From Fig.14, we can conclude that employing a bigger Rl value of

more than 1.2 is not favorable based on the variation trends of experimental and numerical results.

5. Discussion

As analyzed above, while the Rl is up to the value of 1.41, even the integrated falling-film factor shows

the peak value of 0.978, but there is still dryout onset outside of the enhanced tubes, therefore, it is

necessary to explore the falling-film heat transfer of each discrete element of the unit volumes. Fig.15

shows the layout of the non-dimensional falling-film factor of discrete elements in the tube bundles.

Without loss of generality, the elements (4, 3) and (4, 19) in the bottom passage which is more probable for

emerging dryout compared to other passages, are typically selected to explore the falling-film heat transfer

of discrete elements.

The non-dimensional falling-film factors of elements (4, 3) and (4, 19) varying with the liquid

recirculating ratio Rl are presented in Fig.16. It can be seen that the non-dimensional falling-film factors of

elements (4, 3) and (4, 19) are nearly proportional to the Rl with the range of 1.0-1.41, which implies the

ejector LRS does significantly improve the heat transfer coefficient of refrigerant falling film hr,o. However,

this does not means that the ejector LRS can obviously enhance the total heat flux of tube elements

according to the following equation,

16

Page 16 of 30
 t cw , r
qo (23)
Ao 1 w 2 Ao 1
( ri )
Ai hcw , i w Ao Ai hr , o

where tcw,r is the log mean temperature difference between the chilled water inside the tube and liquid

refrigerant outside the tube.

From the Eq (23), the heat flux qo of tube element hinges not only on hr,o, but also on hcw,i and other

thermal resistances, and this is exactly evidenced by Fig.16. The local heat fluxes of discrete elements (4, 3)

and (4, 19) varying with the liquid recirculating ratio are shown in Fig.16, the heat fluxes of discrete

elements quickly increase first, and then upgrade slightly following the increase of Rl, and the marked

watershed of Rl is close to the value of 1.2.

6. Conclusions

The finite difference model of the horizontal-tube falling-film evaporator is established, and the

experimental system is proposed as well as the test is performed, and following conclusions are drawn:

The experimental and numerical evaporating capacities achieve improvements of 9.5% and 6.7%,

respectively, when Rl increases from 1.0 to 1.21; and the corresponding deviation between the experimental

and numerical capacity of the evaporator is about 3.3%.

When the value of Rl exceeds 1.2, the evaporated liquid refrigerant increases slightly with the increase

of Rl; and employing a bigger Rl value of more than 1.2 is not significant for enhancing the performance of

falling-film heat transfer.

The optimum of Rl is about 1.2, the corresponding value of about 0.85, and attempting to eliminate

completely the dryout patch outside of tubes is not advisable.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge supports through the Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science
17

Page 17 of 30
Foundation (BK20140924, BK20151549).

REFERENCES

Besagni G., Mereu R., Inzoli F., 2016. Ejector refrigeration: A comprehensive review. Renew. Sust. Energ.

Rev. (53), 373-407.

Bivens, D.B., Patron, D.M., Yokozeki, A., 1997. Performance of R32/R125/R134a mixture in systems with

accumulators or flooded evaporators. ASHRAE Trans. 103(1), 777-780.

Chen J.Y., Jarall S., Havtun H., Palm B., 2015. A review on versatile ejector applications in refrigeration

systems. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. (49), 67-90.

Chen X.J., Omer S., Worall M., Riffat S., 2013. Recent developments in ejector refrigeration technologies.

Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. (19), 629-651.

Dopazo J.A., Seara. J.F., 2011. Experimental evaluation of an ejector as liquid re-circulator in an overfeed

NH3 system with a plate evaporator. Int. J. Refrigeration 34(7), 1676-1683.

Fujita, Y., Tsutsui, M., 1998. Experimental investigation of falling film evaporation on horizontal tubes.

Heat Transfer Jpn. 27(8), 609-618.

Giuliani, G., Hewitt, N.J., Marchesi-Donati, F., Polonara, F., 1999. Composition shift in liquid-recirculation

refrigerating systems: an experimental investigation for the pure fluid R134a and the mixture R32/134a.

Int. J. Refrigeration 22(6), 486-498.

Kutateladze, S.S., 1948. On the transition to film boiling under natural convection. Kotloturbostroenie 3

(10), 10-15.

Lawrence N., Elbel S., 2015. Mathematical modeling and thermodynamic investigation of the use of

two-phase ejectors for work recovery and liquid recirculation in refrigeration cycles. Int. J.

Refrigeration (58), 41-52.

18

Page 18 of 30
Lawrence N., Elbel S., 2016. Experimental investigation on the effect of evaporator design and application

of work recovery on the performance of two-phase ejector liquid recirculation cycles with R410A. Appl.

Therm. Eng. (100), 398-411.

Li Y.L., Tan L.Z., Zhang X.S., Du K., 2014. Experimental evaluation of an ejector as a liquid re-circulator

in falling film water chiller. Int. J. Refrigeration (40), 309-316.

Lorenz, J.J., Yung, D., 1982. Film breakdown and bundle-depth effects in horizontal tube, falling-film

evaporators. J. Heat Transfer-Trans. ASME. 104(3), 569-571.

Minetto S., Brignoli R., Zilio C., Marinetti S., 2014. Experimental analysis of a new method for

overfeeding multiple evaporators in refrigeration systems. Int. J. Refrigeration 38(1), 1-9.

Radchenko, N.I., 1985. On reducing the size of liquid separators for injector circulation plate freezers. Int. J.

Refrigeration 8(5), 267-269.

Ribatski, G., Thome, J.R., 2007. Experimental study on the onset of local dryout in an evaporating falling

film on horizontal plain tubes. Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 31(6), 483-493.

Roques, J.F., Thome, J.R., 2007. Falling films on arrays of horizontal tubes with R-134a, part II: flow

visualization, onset of dryout, and heat transfer predictions. Heat Transfer Eng. 28(5), 415-434.

Webb, R.L., Pais, C., 1992. Nucleate boiling data for five refrigerants on plain, integral-fin and enhanced

tube geometries. Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 35(8), 1893-1904.

19

Page 19 of 30
 j=1
j=2 j=14
j
j=3 j=15

p=1
25mm

p=2
Falling-film
38mm
p region

p=3

p=4
Flooded
region

Fig.1a Sketch of passage and column of tube bundle

Chilled Chilled

water inlet water outlet

tu,cwi tu,cwo

Fig.1b Discrete element layout of single tube along the horizontal length direction

20

Page 20 of 30
 i
Chilled i=1 i=20

water inlet
1,2 Passage 1
i
p
Passage 2
i (p, i)

p,i Passage 3

i=20 i=1
Chilled
water outlet
4,19 Passage 4 4,3

Fig.1c Discrete element layout of random column in tube bundles.

Liquid
refrigerant teva hr,o Chilled
water out
tu,cwo
w
Ao
ri

tu,cwi Ai tu,wo
Chilled
w
water in hcw,i

Fig.2 Falling-film heat transfer process of horizontal tube.

21

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 Parameters Input

p=1

i=1

p=p+1 qo1=0.85

tu,cwo , hr,o tu,wo

qo1=(qo1+qo2)/2 i=i+1
qo2 t, hcw,i

N
|qo1-qo2|/qo1<10-4
Y
N
i >=20
Y
N
p >=4
Y
Output

Fig.3 Logical flowchart of numerical calculation

(3)

GS (7)
FFE
Vsuc
(5) (6)
EMV FM (2)
CP EJ

(4) EV
(1) Vmot FM
one-way
OS valve
AFE Vcond RV

FM Dry filter

Fig.4 Schematic diagram of the air-cooled falling-film water chiller

22

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 p
1 4

5 7 2
3
6
6a
h
Fig.5 P-h diagram of the AFWC system

low-pressure refrigerant
high-pressure working ejector from expansion valve
fluid from dry filter (2)
(1) (7)
Liquid
working inlet (6) distributing plate
outlet

Passage 1
entraining inlet
Passage 2

Passage 3

Passage 4
Flowmeter

(5)
falling-film
heat exchanger
low-pressure entraining fluid
from the bottom of FFE bottom receiver

Fig.6 Schematic of the falling-film evaporator with ejector LRS

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Fig.7 Photographs of the enhanced tubes

82,4
R5

67
10
177,7

Fig.8a Image of the liquid-liquid ejector structure

Fig.8b Installation drawing of the liquid-liquid ejector

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Fig.9 Overview of the test facility

0.305 1.3

flow rate
Evaporating liquid flow rate [kg s ]
-1

ratio

Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl

0.300
1.2

0.295

1.1

0.290

1.0
0.285

0.280 0.9
0.28 0.30 0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.40
-1
Recirculating flow rate of refrigerant liquid [kg s ]

Fig.10 Flow rate of evaporating refrigerant liquid and liquid recirculating ratio varying with liquid
recirculation flow rate.

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 60 7.4

Outlet temperature of chilled water [C]

capacity
Capacity of evaporator [kW]

59 temperature 7.2

58
7.0

57

6.8
56

6.6
55

54 6.4
0.28 0.30 0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.40
-1
Recirculating flow rate of refrigerant liquid [kg s ]
Fig.11 Evaporator capacity and outlet temperature of chilled water varying with liquid recirculation flow
rate.

0.305 1.0
Evaporating liquid flow rate [kg s ]
-1

0.9
Integrated falling-film factor,
0.300

0.8

0.295

flow rate 0.7

factor
0.290
0.6

0.285 0.5
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl
Fig.12 Evaporating liquid flow rate and integrated falling-film factor varying with the liquid recirculating
ratio.

26

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 0.36 0.035

Evaporated in FFE
Liquid flow rate in FFE [kg s ]

Liquid flow rate in the ejctor [kg s ]

-1

-1
recirculated in FFE 0.030
0.34
ejector motive
ejector suction 0.025
0.32

0.020

0.30
0.015

0.28
0.010

0.26 0.005
1.00 1.04 1.08 1.12 1.16 1.20 1.24
Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl

Fig.13 Experimental liquid flow rates in the FFE and ejector varying with the liquid recirculating ratio.

60
Capacity of evaporator [kW]

58

56

54
numerical simulation

experimental test
52

50
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3
Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl

Fig.14 Comparison between the numerical simulation and experimental test about evaporator capacity
varying with the liquid recirculating ratio.

27

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 1.0

0.8
Falling-film factor

0.6

0.4
4,19
4,3
0.2

0.0
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl
Fig.15 Falling-film factors of discrete elements varying with the liquid recirculating ratio

1900
Heat flux of discrete element [Wm ]
-2

1800

1700 element(4,19)

1600

1300

1200 element(4,3)

1100

1000
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5
Liquid recirculating ratio, Rl

Fig.16 Heat fluxes of discrete elements varying with the liquid recirculating ratio

28

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Table.1
Summary of reported evaporator performance in ejector liquid recirculation cycles available from open
references
Study Refrigerant Cycle Evaporator Results
Radchenko R22 ELR plate Separator size is reduced by the injector bypassing
(1985) part of the separated liquid.
Dopazo et al. NH3 ELR plate Recirculation rates between 2 and 4; evaporating
(2011) capacity varied from 9.48 kW to 18.37 kW.
Li et al. (2014) R134a ELR Horizontal-tube Capacity and COP enhancements of 4.8% and 2.4%
falling-film with an optimal recirculation ratio of about 1.13.
Minetto et al. CO2 ELR round-tube- Compressor energy saving about 13% in the case of
(2014) plate-fin thermostatic control.
Lawrence et al. R134a/R410A ELR/SE/DX microchannel CO2 increased 25% COP by SE, R134a 7% COP by
(2015) /CO2 ELR, R410 6% COP by both SE and ELR.
Lawrence et al. R410A ELR/SE/DX microchannel COP improvement of up to 16% with the ELR cycle
(2016) and 9% by the SE cycle.

Table.2 Parameters of the enhanced copper tubes

Tube section Item parameters
Outside diameter 19.05 mm
Plain section Wall thickness 1.04 mm
Effective length of both tube ends 100 mm
Outside diameter 18.85 mm
Wall thickness 0.63 mm
Average internal diameter, mm 17.59
Minimum wall thickness 0.56 mm
Finned section Ridge height 0.35 mm
Actual outside surface area 0.2297 m2m-1
Actual inside surface area 0.0751 m2m-1
Effective length 1425 mm
Tube number of tube bundle 64

29

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Table.3 Designed parameters of the EJ
Item parameters
The nozzle outlet diameter 1.6 mm
The nozzle inlet diameter 10 mm
The nozzle length 45.7 mm
The mixing section diameter 14 mm
The mixing section length 45 mm
The diffuser outlet diameter 24 mm
The diffuser length 57 mm
The entraining inlet diameter 16 mm
The suction chamber diameter 35 mm
The spacing between the nozzle and mixing section 10 mm
The total length of ejector 177.7 mm

Table.4 Specification of the different measuring devices

Parameters Devices Accuracy Range
Air DB temperature K-type thermocouple 0.1 0-100
Air WB temperature Wet-bulb sensor 0.1 0-80
Air flow rate Standard flow nozzles 1.5% 800-4500 m3 h-1
R134a liquid flow rates Electromagnetic flow meters 1% of the span 0.2 2.5 m3 h-1
Pressure Transducer 1% of the span 0 - 20 bar
Water flows Electromagnetic flow meters 2.5% of the span 1 - 25 m3 h-1

Table.5 Comparison of numerical simulations among different discrete grid numbers of single tube
Number of discrete grid
Item
20 30 50 75 100
-1
Evaporated liquid flow rate, kg s 0.2868 0.2872 0.2875 0.2873 0.2872
-1
recirculated liquid flow rate, kg s 0.2924 0.2924 0.2924 0.2924 0.2924
-1
Liquid recirculation rate, kg s 1.020 1.018 1.017 1.018 1.018
Capacity of evaporator, kW 55.9 55.98 56.04 56.01 55.99
Deviation of evaporator capacity 0 0.14% 0.25% 0.20% 0.16%

30

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