CT-17 Improved Composition Profile Method for Downflow Condensation of Vapor-Gas and Mixtures in Vertical Tubes
Different film theory correlations have been used to predict heat and mass transfer for condensation of mixtures with and without noncondensable gases. HTRI used a theoretical approach to develop our Composition Profile Method (CPM). To account for the effect of mass diffusivity and thermal diffusivity, HTRI recently modified the CPM by calculating the Lewis number and including an empirical correction factor for the mass diffusivity term for condensation of multicomponent mixtures. The modified CPM predicts more than 92 percent of experimental data within ± 25 percent over a wide range of operating conditions. The improved method is also applicable even in cases with a high mole fraction of noncondensable gas (yg up to 0.88). This report presents HTRI’s improvements to the CPM for tubeside downflow condensation of pure components and mixtures in the presence of noncondensable gases.