An Assessment of Friction Factor and Viscosity Models for Predicting the Refrigerant Characteristics in Adiabatic Capillary Tubes

Capillary tubes are widely used as expansion device in small refrigeration systems. The refrigerant flowing in the capillary tube experiences frictional and accelerational head losses and flashing simultaneously. In this paper flow characteristics of adiabatic capillary tubes were simulated with various friction factor models, two-phase viscosity models, and two-phase frictional multiplier models. The predicted pressure distribution and mass flow rate are compared with experimental data reported in literature. It is confirmed that the predicting accuracy with homogeneous model can be improved by employing suitable correlations of friction factor, two-phase viscosity and two-phase frictional multiplier.