Substantiation and the range of application of a new method for heat transfer prediction in condensing inside plain tubes

Since the first work of Tepe and Mueller and until now, there have been published hundreds of studies with the results of heat transfer investigations in vertical and horizontal tubes with vapour condensing of various liquids. Dozens of methods and formulae based both on the results of the theoretical research and on the experimental data have been proposed. The existence of more than 50% discrepancy in different experimental data and various empirical and theoretical relationships is shown. Thus, the absence of both substantiation of different methods and explanations of methods disagreement both between themselves and with different experiments is noted. Also, there are often no remarks concerning boundaries for the use of proposed relationships. There is proposed a simple semi-empirical correlation for heat transfer prediction in condensing inside the plain tubes at the annular and intermediate flow of the phases. This correlation is based on the nature of film condensation process and on the specific features of the results of theoretical solutions. The range of application of complexes, which determine the heat transfer process, is also substantiated. Good convergence of the new method with the experimental data on condensation of steam, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbon refrigerants and other various fluids inside horizontal and vertical tubes is shown.