Phenomenological correlations for two phase heat transfer and pressure drop performance of electrohydrodynamic horizontal convective boiling of dielectric fluids

EHD is an active heat transfer enhancement technique for convective boiling or condensing dielectric fluids whose performance varies widely in the literature for even the same geometry and fluids. As such, the performance of EHD convective boiling devices remains largely unpredictable. Two empirical EHD convective boiling heat transfer coefficient correlations exist in the literature with good performance when compared to their exact test dataset and geometry, however they have been shown to have poor correlations in predicting the performance for external test datasets. In this paper, a phenomenological approach is taken in the development of a new EHD convective boiling heat transfer coefficient correlation and a novel EHD convective boiling pressure drop correlation. The performance correlations are based on widely-used free-field convective boiling correlations for heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop with phenomenological enhancement factors based on the two phase flow pattern as predicted using the EHD two phase flow pattern map which accounts for the effect of electric field strength on flow pattern redistribution, as described in a previously published paper (Nangle-Smith and Cotton, 2018). A review of the EHD convective boiling experimental literature was conducted to determine confounding factors that can impact the large variance in the reported performance. Flow pattern and applied heat flux were identified as common parameters not maintained constant in the experimental data. Two datasets, including data from the present study, in which flow pattern and applied heat flux are maintained constant were used in the development of the performance correlations. Considerable improvement over previous EHD convective boiling performance correlations was found both in error and the physical significance of coefficients. The correlations were developed for thermodynamic qualities in the range of 20–60% below the onset of dryout or mist flow patterns and for applied heat fluxes < 30 kW/m2. Furthermore, test conditions in this study were chosen to focus on the dielectrophoretic effect and therefore studies with significant electrophoresis were not included. Thus, the correlation is limited to positive applied voltages, saturated flow boiling conditions, and field strengths below the onset of charge injection. The authors recommend this approach for EHD two phase performance correlation development as it is more mechanistic, is analogous to the state-of-the-art approaches for free-field two phase performance, and is likely to yield more accurate models as more experimental data becomes available.