Influence of Refrigeration Oil on Evaporation Heat Transfer Characteristics of R-290 Inside Micro Fin Tube

Recently, micro fin tube is widely used to heat exchanger for high performance. And, as the alternative refrigerants for R-22, hydrocarbons such as R-290, R-600 and R-600a are very promising because of their low GWP and ODP. Thus, R-290 was used as working fluid in this study. Most design of heat exchanger had been based on heat transfer characteristics of pure refrigerant although refrigerant oil exists in the refrigeration cycles. So, the influence of oil on heat transfer characteristics have to be considered for investigating exact evaporation heat transfer characteristics. But, this is an unresolved problem of refrigeration heat transfer. Therefore the influence of the refrigeration oil to the evaporation heat transfer characteristics of R-290 were conducted in a horizontal micro tin tube. The mineral oil was used as refrigeration oil. The experimental apparatus consisted of a basic refrigeration cycle and a system for oil concentration measurement. Test conditions are as the follows; evaporation temperature , mass velocity 100 , heat flux 10 , oil concentration 0, 1.3, 3.3, 5.7 wt.%, and quality . When refrigeration oil was entered, oil foaming was observed at the low quality region. And, very small bubbles were observed as quality was increased. Pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient increased as the concentration of refrigeration oil increased to 5 wt.%.. The performance index of heat exchanger was the highest near 3.3 wt.%.