Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group provides heat exchangers used in chemical plants, boilers, air conditioners, etc. In heat exchangers, gas-liquid two-phase flow is distributed to multiple heat transfer tubes by a cone-type or header-type distributor. To predict the flow distribution characteristics, we need to consider not only the behavior of the gas-liquid two-phase flow in the distributor, but also the pressure drop in the heat transfer tubes on the downstream side. Therefore, we developed a flow distribution prediction method by coupling numerical analysis for the flow in a distributor and a one-dimensional model for the pressure drop in heat transfer tubes. The results obtained by the developed prediction method were compared with the experimental results, and it was verified that regardless of the presence or absence of phase change due to heat exchange in heat transfer tubes, the developed method could predict the liquid-phase distribution ratio with practical accuracy.
