Subcooled Flow Boiling With Microbubble Emission in a Michrochannel

Subcooled flow boiling of water has been investigated for the horizontal multi-microchannel of which hydraulic diameter is 150μm for unit channel. Eleven rectangular microchannels are made on a top of copper heating block of 5.25mm × 5.25mm. The outlet of the channel is opened to the atmospheric surroundings and the maximum pressure in the channel is lower than 25mmHg. The boiling test is performed under the nearly atmospheric condition. The experimental results are discussed compared with subcooled boiling of water in a microchannel of 155μm in hydraulic diameter with Platinum film microheater of 2000μm in length and 200μm in width obtained by Ping Cheng and his co-workers. According to the authors’ previous experiments on subcooled flow boiling in mini and conventional channels, the critical heat flux decreases with decreasing of the hydraulic diameter of the channel. The boiling in the microchannel turns to film boiling after reaching CHF without microbubble emission boiling (MEB) regardless of liquid subcooling and liquid velocity even if the boiling condition is the same as MEB in the minichannels. In the high heat flux region, whole of the microchannels is completely covered with large coalescing bubbles. The results are much different from those of experiments with Platinum film microheater, which have 14.41 MW/m² of heat flux in MEB. It is difficult to introduce liquid–vapor exchange including MEB for the large capacitance heat sink in microchannel boiling.