Author : Esam M. Abed and Ammar Abdulkadhim

In the present study, phase change of refrigerant flow through capillary tube under adiabatic conditions has been studied based on computational fluid dynamics technique. Eulerian multiphase flow Homogeneous equilibrium model along with thermal phase change based on mass transfer mechanism was used for simulation of refrigerant flow through adiabatic straight capillary tube. The effect of various design parameter such condensation pressure, capillary tube length and capillary tube diameter on the flashing inception point has been discussed numerically. The numerical model based on finite volume method using turbulence model gives the behavior of refrigerant properties such as field of pressure, temperature, dryness fraction, void fraction and velocity along the distance of capillary tube which helps in the understanding of beginning of vaporization phenomenon. The present numerical model has been validated with the others models and a good agreement are obtained which can be lead to depend up on ANSYS CFX 16.1 in design and optimization of capillary tube of refrigeration industry.

Keywords: ANSYS CFX, CFD, flashing inception point.

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.6, No.5 (Oct-2016)