Evaporation of Water in an Aqueous Lithium Bromide Solution flowing over a Horizontal Tube

Falling film heat transfer analyses with aqueous lithium bromide solution were performed to investigate the transfer characteristics of the copper tubes. Finned (knurled) tube and a smooth tube were selected as test specimens. Averaged generation fluxes of water and the heat flux were obtained. As the film flow rate of the solution increased, the generation fluxes of water decreased for both tubes due to the fact that the heat transfer resistance increased with the film thickness. The effect of the enlarged surface area at the knurled tube was supposed to be dominant at a small flow rate. The generation fluxes of water increased with the increasing degree of tube wall superheat. Nucleate boiling is supposed to occur at a wall superheat of 20K for a smooth tube, and at 10K for a knurled tube. The increased performance of the knurled tube was supposed to mainly come from the effect of the increased heating surface area.