Subcooled Flow Boiling on Micro-Porous Structured Copper Surface in a Vertical Mini-Gap Channel

An experimental investigation of subcooled flow boiling in a large width-to-height-ratio, one-sided heating rectangular mini-gap channel was conducted with deionized water as the working fluid. The super-hydrophobicity micro-porous structured copper surface was utilized in the experiments. High speed flow visualization was conducted to illustrate the effects of heat flux and mass rate on the heat transfer coefficient and flow pattern on the surfaces. The mass fluxes were in the range of 200–500 kg/m²s, the wall heat fluxes were spanned from 40–400 kW/m². With increments of imposed heat flux, the slopes of boiling curves for superhydrophobic micro-porous copper surfaces increased rapidly, indicating the Onset of Nucleate Boiling. Heat transfer characteristics were discussed with variation of heat fluxes and mass fluxes, the trends of which were analyzed with the aid of high speed flow visualization.