A Study on Flow Patterns and Pressure Drop in Adiabatic Two-Phase Flow Across a Bank of Micro Pin Fins

Flow patterns, void fraction and pressure drop in adiabatic nitrogen-water two phase flows across a bank of micro pin fin were experimentally investigated for Reynolds number ranging from 5 to 50. Staggered cylindrical shaped micro pin fins with diameter and height of 100 μm were micro-fabricated into 1 cm long, 1.8 mm microchannel. Flow patterns were determined by flow visualization and classified as bubbly-slug flow, gas-slug flow, bridged flow and annular flow. The applicability of conventional scale models to predict two-phase frictional pressure drop was also assessed. The two-phase frictional multiplier was found to be a strong function of mass flux and flow patterns unlike the previous results observed in the microchannel studies. It was observed that models from conventional scale systems did not adequately predict the two-phase frictional multiplier at micro-scale and thus, a modified model accounting for mass flux and flow patterns have been developed in this work.