Description and validation of the Little correlation for boiling zeotropic mixtures in horizontal tubes from cryogenic to room temperature

The use of mixed gas working fluids has become common in Joule-Thomson (JT) type cryocoolers for a variety of applications operating in temperatures ranging from 80 to 230 K. The thermal efficiency of mixed gas JT cryocoolers is dependent on the optimization of the gas mixture composition. Most optimization methodologies focus on thermodynamic criteria of the cycle because there are very little data or theory currently available regarding the heat transfer coefficients associated with these multi-component mixtures in two-phase regimes at cryogenic temperatures. A generally accepted correlation to predict the local heat transfer coefficient (htc) for mixtures during the boiling process does not exist. Little [1] proposed a correlation to be used on horizontal tubes that shows good agreement with Nellis et al. [2] experimental data of nitrogen-hydrocarbon mixtures. However, it is not clearly shown how the correlation is obtained and how it should be applied. This paper provides a more complete description of the Little correlation and also expands its validation using the experimental data provided by Barraza [3]. The new experimental data include measurements of the local heat transfer coefficient for mixtures comprising 2 component (binary) up to 5 components in the temperature range between 100 K and room temperature. These mixtures are formed from nitrogen-hydrocarbon and argon-fluorocarbon mixtures and evaporate in horizontal tubes with diameters from 0.5 to 3.0 mm for different heat flux, mass flux, evaporating pressure, and composition.