Abstract
The objectives of this paper are to develop a new method of wettability mea-surement and to study the effect of surface roughness on the wettability in a $H_2O$/LiBr falling film absorber. Two absorber tubes with micro-scale roughness and a bare tube are tested in a falling film absorber installed in a test rig. Inlet solution temperature, concentration and mass flow rate are considered as key parameters. A new method is proposed to estimate the wettability of a tube by measuring a minimum mass flow rate to wet the tube completely. The wettability for the structured surfaces was higher than that for the bare tube. The wettability decreased linearly along the vertical location. The wettability increased with increasing the solution temperature and the solution mass flow rate. The experimental correlations of the wettability for the bare and the micro-hatched tubes were developed with error bands of$\pm20%\;and\;\pm10%$, respectively. This work can be used in the design of absorbers with micro-scale roughness.
