Pressure drop characteristics of cryogenic mixed refrigerant at macro and micro channel heat exchangers

Mixed Refrigerant-Joule Thomson (MR-JT) refrigerators are widely used in various kinds of cryogenic systems these days. The temperature glide effect is one of the major features of using mixed refrigerants since a recuperative heat exchanger in a MR-JT refrigerator is utilized for mostly two-phase flow. Although a pressure drop estimation for a multi-phase and multi-component fluid in the cryogenic temperature range is necessarily required in MR-JT refrigerator heat exchanger designs, it has been rarely discussed so far. In this paper, macro heat exchangers and micro heat exchangers are compared in order to investigate the pressure drop characteristics in the experimental MR-JT refrigerator operation. The tube in tube heat exchanger (TTHE) is a well-known macro-channel heat exchanger in MR-JT refrigeration. Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers (PCHEs) have been developed as a compact heat exchanger with micro size channels. Several two-phase pressure drop correlations are examined to discuss the experimental pressure measurement results. The result of this paper shows that cryogenic mixed refrigerant pressure drop can be estimated with conventional two-phase pressure drop correlations if an appropriate flow pattern is identified. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.