Review of Databases and Correlations for Saturated Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Coefficient for Cryogens in Uniformly Heated Tubes, and Development of New Consolidated Database and Universal Correlations

Abstract Experiments to determine saturated flow boiling heat transfer coefficient (HTC) for cryogens in uniformly heated, round tubes have been performed throughout the globe during the past sixty years. However, experimental HTC data are either rarely published or made available only for a few cryogens, with majority remaining in the archives of authors, or in obscure technical reports of an organization or other inaccessible sources. In the present study, the Purdue University-Boiling and Two-Phase Flow Laboratory (PU-BTPFL) Cryogen Saturated Flow Boiling HTC Database is consolidated from world literature dating back to 1959. With 2505 local and 747 average data points for LHe I, para-LH2, LNe, LN2, LAr, and LCH4, it represents the largest cryogen saturated flow boiling HTC database assembled to date. This database encompasses the controlled variables of tube diameter, from 0.47 to 14.1 mm, heated length-to-diameter ratio, 0.79 to 470.81, system pressure, 0.01 to 2.99 MPa, reduced pressure, 0.03 to 0.88, mass velocity, 7.89 to 1787.56 kg m−2 s−1, and heat flux, 0.01 to 223.2 kW m−2. Using this database, distinct physics unique to cryogens are studied and new dimensionless criteria are developed to classify the data, which are subsequently used to both assess predictive accuracy of seminal HTC correlations and develop new universal cryogen saturated boiling HTC correlations. The new HTC correlations are shown to provide good predictive agreement with the database with an MAE of 26.4% and 34.5%.