Electrohydrodynamic enhancement condensation of dielectric liquid on the horizontal enhanced tube

The enhancement of condensation heat transfer is of practical importance in many industries such as heating, ventilating and air conditioning, power, and aerospace. The present work is concerned with the electrohydrodynamic enhancement of external condensation on single commercial enhanced tubes. Future phases of this work will include applying the technique to practical heat exchangers and developing a prototype of electrohydrodynamic condenser. Single tube experiments were performed on enhanced tube. The green refrigerant was R-134a, with the electrohydrodynamic voltage in the range 0 to 25 kV, saturation temperature 298 to 318 K, and heat flux 35 kW/(m K). The results indicated that the external heat transfer coefficient significantly increased under the effect of electrical field. The optimum heat transfer enhancement was approximately 2.6-fold, with electrohydrodynamic power consumption lower than 1.5% of the test section heat transfer rate.