RFACTOR TO DETERMINE THE REYNOLDS NUMBER OF SATURATED WATER FLOWING IN TUBES

Fluid flowing in a tube is commonly used in practice for heating and cooling applications. The flow in a tube can be laminar or turbulent, entirely depending on the flow conditions. It is therefore, useful to know the nature of the flow, especially in evaluating the Nusselt number. Osborn Reynolds, in the 1880's, discovered that the flow depends mainly on the mean flow velocity V; inner tube diameter D, and the kinematic viscosity v and this led to the formulation of the Reynolds number, a dimensionless physical quantity. The parameters defining Reynolds number are dependent on temperature, whereby an accurate representation of this number will be critical in the determination of the flow regimes. This problem was solved by obtaining a temperature dependent model, which represented these parameters. The temperature dependent model obtained by using the reciprocal quadratic fit is called the RFACTOR , determined in the temperature range of O°C to 360°C, and for saturated water.