Experimental study on the pool boiling heat transfer of R134a outside various enhanced tubes

•The experimental data was analyzed through bubble generate and disengagement.•The experimental variable effect on the existing correlation prediction precision was quantitatively analyzed.•A new correlation was developed applied to the external fin in different shapes. The paper aims to experimentally study the pool boiling heat transfer properties of R134a outside various enhanced tubes under saturation temperatures ranged from 3 to 40 °C and heat fluxes of 5.5∼76.5 kW·m-2. One smooth tube and three micro-fin tubes were selected as the tested tube. Based on the experimental results, it can be found that the pool boiling heat transfer coefficient increases firstly and decreases later with increasing heat flux, but saturation temperature and water velocity have little effect on the heat transfer coefficient. Under the same experimental conditions, refrigerant thermal resistance ratio is greater than 0.5 during the heat transfer process. The micro-fin facilitates the bubble nucleation with the heat transfer enhancement ratio varying in the range of 2.08∼4.59. Moreover, the experimental values are compared with the calculated values of three existing correlations for the pool boiling heat transfer coefficient. The experimental variables, which mainly includes saturation temperature, heat flux and tube structure, have great influences on the correlation accuracy. Finally, to eliminate the influence of the experimental variable, a new correlation was proposed by introducing ratio of fin height to outer diameter of the tested tube. After the further verification, the proposed correlation can predict the heat transfer coefficient with the mean deviation of less than 10%.