[bmb333]

Hello everyone,

I have been using OpenFOAM mainly for incompressible solvers, but recently I received a task which involves running a simulation for evaporators and condensers (like the ones that you see in HVAC systems).

I was wondering if you guys had some insights on what existing solvers I should look at as starters.

I see some folks doing simulations of bubble rising and falling, but I am not sure whether that level of detail is what I need.

Essentially in my mind, I would be completely satisfied if I can get total heat exchanging capacity in kW, pressure drops across inlets and outlets, and some vapor quality field (or some kind of mass/volume ratio between gas phase and liquid phase). Also, obviously, the solver needs to include some sort of phase change capabilities based on heat transfer.

Some people in the HVAC heat exchanger modeling businesses use the approach called homogeneous equilibrium model (HEM) where they treat the two phases as one mixture. To this end, they operate with enthalpy for energy conservation instead of temperature as the variables. Maybe this is a good approach, but I am wondering whether it is more common for 1D problems and not generalizable for higher dimensions.

Please let me know if you have suggestions. I appreciate your comments in advance!