Critical Heat Flux for Serpentine Channel

Abstract

Vertical serpentine channels have complex heat transfer and flow characteristics due to the repetitions of upward and downward flow. In order to gain an understanding of a critical heat flux in vertical serpentine channel, heat transfer experiments were conducted. The serpentine channel was consisted of five straight uniformly heated tubes and four non-heated U-bend. The working fluid, water, flows as upward flow in the first, third and fifth heated tube, while flows as downward flow in the second and fourth heated tube. As a result, two types of critical heat fluxes were obtained, i.e., a liquid film dryout in steady state flow and a periodically dryout in oscillatory flow.