Nucleate pool-boiling enhancement outside a horizontal bank of twisted tubes with machined porous surface

Nucleate pool boiling of refrigerants is of important application in the flooded evaporator of refrigeration and air-conditioning system. Many surface geometries involve machined porous surface have been adopted to enhance the nucleate pool boiling heat transfer of refrigerants. Nucleate pool-boiling performance of R134a and R142b outside a horizontal bank of twisted tubes with machined porous surface (T-MPS tubes) was investigated in this paper. The experimental results showed that the T-MPS tube bank could enhance boiling heat transfer evidently. The enhancement ratios of R134a from the T-MPS tube bank were 1.4–1.7 and the maximum enhancement ratio of R142b could reach up to 4.4. Analyzing the tube bank effects of boiling heat transfer for R134a and R142b, the overall trend showed that the boiling heat transfer performance of the T-MPS tube bank was inferior to that of single T-MPS tube slightly.