Nucleate Pool Boiling on Tubes With Subsurface Mini and Micro Channels

Tubes with subsurface mini- and micro channels are widely used in boiling devices. Today, the design of these tubes is based on empirical investigations because reliable theoretical or numerical design methods are not available, and the heat transfer performance characteristics vary strongly e.g. for different fluids, system pressures and heat fluxes. The presented study approaches the subject of interest from 3 different paths: (i) macroscopic heat transfer performance measurements; (ii) optical measurements of the thermal and hydrodynamic phenomena inside the subsurface channels with very high spatial and temporal resolution; (iii) development of a computational model. While path (i) is a standard procedure in the scientific community, path (ii) is a completely new approach, and only the combination of (i) and (ii) is a solid basis for the physically based model development in path (iii). Tubes with different subsurface channels and micro pin-fins are used in combination with different fluids at different system pressures. The results are presented and discussed.