Two-phase flow inside the two-phase closed thermosyphon (TPCT) including evaporator, adiabatic and condenser sections was visually investigated in order to qualitatively analyze the complicated behaviors of both liquid film and vapor flows simultaneously. The semi-cylindrical channel which is 650 mm long was formed in the long copper block and the flat face of the channel was covered with a flat Pyrex glass for visual observation. The inner diameter of the semi-cylindrical channel was 25 mm and distilled water was used as a working fluid. The filling ratio of the thermosyphon was fixed at 0.5 and the inclination angle was set to 60º. As the heat flux increases, nucleate boiling becomes dominant and the bursting motion starts to begin in the liquid pool at the evaporator section. The bursting liquid flow reaches the condenser section and changes the condensation regime from dropwise to filmwise by flooding the condenser wall, which results in the decrease of condensation heat transfer coefficient. In addition, the vigorous vapor generation which occurs in the liquid pool at the evaporator section disturbs the circulation of the condensate film from the condenser to the evaporator section. As a result, the local dry-out occurs on the evaporator section with increasing heat flux, so the boiling heat transfer coefficient is decreased. [This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018H1D3A2000929).]

Heat pipe characteristics are linked to the surface properties of the diabatic surfaces, and, in the evaporator, surface properties influence both the onset boiling temperature (T ONB ) and the critical heat flux (CHF). In this work, the effect of surface wettability in pool boiling heat transfer is studied in order to understand if there could be a path to increment heat pipe thermal performance. This work analyzes the effects of surface wettability on boiling (tested fluid is pure water) and proposes a new super-hydrophobic polymeric coating (De Coninck et al., 2017, “Omniphobic Surface Coatings,” Patent No. WO/2017/220591), which can have a very important effect in improving the heat pipe start-up power load and increasing the thermal performance of heat pipes when the flux is lower than the critical heat flux. The polymeric coating is able to reduce the T ONB (−11% from 117 °C to about 104 °C) compared with the uncoated surfaces, as it inhibits the formation of a vapor film on the solid–liquid interface, avoiding CHF conditions up to maximum wall temperature (125 °C). This is realized by the creation of a heterogeneous surface with superhydrophobic surface (SHS) zones dispersed on top of a hydrophilic surface (stainless steel surface). The proposed coating has an outstanding thermal resistance: No degradation of SH properties of the coating has been observed after more than 500 thermal cycles.

This paper reports the experimental data of boiling heat transfer coefficients for the ammonia–lithium nitrate mixture in a laminar falling film. The analyzed heat exchanger consists of a shell with an internal helical coil. More than one hundred test runs were carried out in steady-state conditions to determine the boiling heat transfer coefficients at generation temperatures, concentrations, and mass flow rates typical of absorption cooling systems of capacities between 5 and 10 kW. Ammonia vapor was produced at generation temperatures between 80 °C and 105 °C obtaining boiling heat transfer coefficients between 85 and 340 W/m 2 K. Semi-empirical correlations were used by diverse authors to correlate the experimental data. A new correlation was proposed with which the best adjustments were obtained. Also, the influence of the heat flux, the refrigerant solution mass flow rates, and the exit vapor qualities were analyzed in the boiling heat transfer coefficients.

In this work, the effectiveness of the numerical simulations in advancing fundamental understanding of bubble dynamics and nucleate pool boiling heat transfer is discussed. The results of numerical simulations are validated with experiments on ground, in parabolic flights and on the International Space Station (ISS). As such validation is carried out when the level of gravity is varied over seven orders of magnitude. It is shown that reduced gravity stretches the length and time scales of the process and generally leads to degradation of rate of heat transfer associated with nucleate boiling.

Nucleate pool boiling heat transfer and its ebullient dynamics in polymeric solutions at atmospheric pressure saturated conditions are experimentally investigated. Three grades of hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) are used, which have intrinsic viscosity in the range 5.29 ≤ [ η ] ≤ 10.31 [dl/g]. Their aqueous solutions in different concentrations, with zero-shear viscosity in the range 0.0021 ≤ η 0 ≤ 0.0118 [N⋅s/m 2 ], exhibit shear-thinning rheology in varying degrees, as well as gas–liquid interfacial tension relaxation and wetting. Boiling heat transfer in solutions with constant molar concentrations of each additive, which are greater than their respective critical polymer concentration C * , is seen to have anomalous characteristics. There is degradation in the heat transfer at low heat fluxes, relative to that in the solvent, where the postnucleation bubble dynamics in the partial boiling regime is dominated by viscous resistance of the polymeric solutions. At higher heat fluxes, however, there is enhancement of boiling heat transfer due to a complex interplay of pseudoplasticity and dynamic surface tension effects. The higher frequency vapor bubbling train with high interfacial shear rates in this fully developed boiling regime tends to be influenced by increasing shear-thinning and time-dependent differential interfacial tension relaxation at the dynamic gas–liquid interfaces.

Recently, two-phase cryogenic flow boiling data in liquid nitrogen (LN 2 ) and liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ) were compared to the most popular two-phase correlations, as well as correlations used in two of the most widely used commercially available thermal/fluid design codes in Hartwig et al. (2016, “Assessment of Existing Two Phase Heat Transfer Coefficient and Critical Heat Flux on Cryogenic Flow Boiling Quenching Experiments,” Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 93 , pp. 441–463). Results uncovered that the correlations performed poorly, with predictions significantly higher than the data. Disparity is primarily due to the fact that most two-phase correlations are based on room temperature fluids, and for the heating configuration, not the quenching configuration. The penalty for such poor predictive tools is higher margin, safety factor, and cost. Before control algorithms for cryogenic transfer systems can be implemented, it is first required to develop a set of low-error, fundamental two-phase heat transfer correlations that match available cryogenic data. This paper presents the background for developing a new set of quenching/chilldown correlations for cryogenic pipe flow on thin, shorter lines, including the results of an exhaustive literature review of 61 sources. New correlations are presented which are based on the consolidated database of 79,915 quenching points for a 1.27 cm diameter line, covering a wide range of inlet subcooling, mass flux, pressure, equilibrium quality, flow direction, and even gravity level. Functional forms are presented for LN 2 and LH 2 chilldown correlations, including film, transition, and nucleate boiling, critical heat flux, and the Leidenfrost point.

In the present study, level set method is used to simulate the entire boiling curve in a temperature-controlled mode spanning all the three regimes viz., nucleate, transition, and film boiling with a unified numerical model supplemented with correlations specifying nucleation site density and waiting time between successive nucleations. In order to improve the performance of the code, parallel computing has also been implemented. Vapor evolution process along with temporal- and spatial-averaged wall heat flux and wall void fraction are computed for a uniform wall superheat case. Wall void fraction is found to increase with increase in wall superheat nonlinearly as different regimes of boiling were traversed. Energy partitioning from wall into liquid, interface, and microlayer has also been examined where it is found that as the wall void fraction increases, the percent energy going into liquid decreases while the microlayer contribution peaks around critical heat flux (CHF). Numerical simulations are carried out in 3D with water as test liquid and contact angle of 38 deg.

Heterogeneous nucleate boiling over a flat surface has been studied through complete numerical simulations. During the growth and departure of the vapor bubble, the interface is tracked following a coupled level-set and volume of fluid approach. A microlayer evaporation model similar to Sato and Niceno [“A depletable microlayer model for nucleate pool boiling,” J. Comput. Phys. 300 , 20–52 (2015)] has been deployed in this investigation. A detailed study of the changes in microlayer structure as a result of different modes of boiling scenario has been performed. The departure diameter is found to increase with an increase in substrate superheat. The predicted departure diameter has been compared with the available experimental and analytical results. A power-law curve has been obtained for depicting the growth rate of bubble depending on the degree of superheat at the wall. The space–time averaged wall-heat flux at different values of superheat temperature of substrate is obtained. Bubble growth during subcooled boiling at a low and intermediate subcooled degree has been observed through direct numerical simulations. The variations in bubble dynamics after departure in saturated and subcooled liquid states have been compared.

This paper quantifies the pool boiling performance of R134a, R1234yf, R513A, and R450A on a flattened, horizontal reentrant cavity surface. The study showed that the boiling performance of R134a on the Turbo-ESP exceeded that of the replacement refrigerants for heat fluxes greater than 20 kW m −2 . On average, the heat flux for R1234yf and R513A was 16% and 19% less than that for R134a, respectively, for R134a heat fluxes between 20 kW m −2 and 110 kW m −2 . The heat flux for R450A was on average 57% less than that of R134a for heat fluxes between 30 kW m −2 and 110 kW m −2 . A model was developed to predict both single-component and multicomponent pool boiling of the test refrigerants on the Turbo-ESP surface. The model accounts for viscosity effects on bubble population and uses the Fritz equation to account for increased vapor production with increasing superheat. Both loss of available superheat and mass transfer resistance effects were modeled for the refrigerant mixtures. For most heat fluxes, the model predicted the measured superheat to within ±0.31 K.

This paper presents fundamental research on the hydrodynamics and heat transfer surrounding a single elongated bubble during flow boiling in a circular microchannel. A continuum surface force (CSF) model based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method is combined with the thermocapillary force to explore the effects of thermocapillarity for flow boiling in microchannels. To validate the self-defined codes, a two-phase thermocapillary-driven flow and a Taylor bubble growing in a capillary tube are studied. Results of both test cases show good convergence and agreement with data from the earlier literature. The bubble motion and the local heat transfer coefficient (HTC) on the heated wall with respect to time are discussed. It is found that for large Marangoni number (case 3), variation of surface tension has affected the bubble shape and temperature profile. The thermocapillary effect induces convection in a thin liquid film region, which augments the HTCs at specified positions. The numerical investigation also shows that the average HTC increased by 6.7% in case 3 when compared with case 1. Thus, it is very important to study further the effects of themocapillarity and the Marangoni effect on bubble growth in microchannels.

The hydrophobic, Teflon-coated surfaces on plain copper and Cu-HTCMC (High temperature Thermally Conductive Microporous Coating) compared on pool boiling heat transfer of water. The HTCMC was created by sintering of copper powders with the average particle size of 67 µm and about 300 µm coating thickness that showed a good boiling heat transfer and the CHF enhancement from the previous study at saturation of water [1]. The Teflon-coated surfaces were created by coating of Amorphous Fluoroplastic (AF) 2400 resin on both plain copper and Cu-HTCMC. The static angles of both surfaces showed hydrophobic as about 120-130°. The departure bubble sizes created by merged bubbles of both surfaces are comparable as about 7 mm at 5 kW/m2 and the sizes are increased as heat flux increases. However, unlike to the plain surface, the smaller bubbles on Cu-HTCMC are not observed at the heat flux of 5 kW/m2 because the number of nucleation sites created in the porous structure are huge smaller bubbles are merged as soon as they grow from pores. As heat flux reaches the surfaces are covered by vapor film and reached the critical heat flux (CHF) at much lower heat fluxes compared to hydrophilic surfaces but the CHF values of Teflon-coated Cu-HTCMC is 640 kW/m2 and the value is more than tenfold higher than that of Teflon-coated plain copper.

The accuracy of computational fluid dynamic (CFD)-based heat transfer predictions have been examined of relevance to liquid cooling of IC engines at high engine loads where some nucleate boiling occurs. Predictions based on (i) the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solution and (ii) large eddy simulation (LES) have been generated. The purpose of these simulations is to establish the role of turbulence modeling on the accuracy and efficiency of heat transfer predictions for engine-like thermal conditions where published experimental data are available. A multiphase mixture modeling approach, with a volume-of-fluid interface-capturing method, has been employed. To predict heat transfer in the boiling regime, the empirical boiling correlation of Rohsenow is used for both RANS and LES. The rate of vapor-mass generation at the wall surface is determined from the heat flux associated with the evaporation phase change. Predictions via CFD are compared with published experimental data showing that LES gives only slightly more accurate temperature predictions compared to RANS but at substantially higher computational cost.

This paper presents corrections for existing hydrodynamic instability-based critical heat flux (CHF) models in pool boiling by taking into account the effect of the viscosity, geometry and size of the liquid–vapor interface. Based on the existing literature, the Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) theory, used by the most commonly adopted CHF models, can lead to noticeable errors when predicting the instability conditions. The errors are mainly due to the inaccuracy of the inviscid flow assumptions and the oversimplification of the interface geometry. In addition, the literature suggests the most unstable condition predicted by the viscous correction for viscous potential flow (VCVPF) theory for the cylindrical interfaces best match the observed air column breakup conditions in water. In this paper, the most unstable instability conditions predicted by the VCVPF theory are used to correct the existing CHF models. The comparison between the existing and corrected CHF models suggests that the corrected models always predict a higher CHF value. In addition, the corrected Zuber model predicts similar CHF value to the Lienhard and Dhir model. The comparison with experimental data suggests that the correction to the Zuber model can increase its prediction accuracy in most cases, but not necessary for the Lienhard and Dhir model. When compared to experimental CHF data for boiling cryogens at different pressures, the corrected CHF models are consistently more accurate than the original CHF models.

Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of R-134a boiling in a chevron-patterned brazed plate heat exchanger (BPHE) are studied experimentally. With corrugated BPHE channels having hydraulic diameter of 3.4 mm and low refrigerant mass flux, boiling near the micro-macroscale transition is speculated. Heat exchanger performance is characterized with varying mass flux (30–50 kgm −2 s −1 ), saturation pressure (675 kPa and 833 kPa), heat flux (0.8 and 2.5 kWm −2 ), and vapor quality (0.1–0.9). The two-phase refrigerant heat transfer coefficient increases with heat flux as often observed during nucleate boiling. It also weakly increases with saturation pressure and the associated lower latent heat during convective boiling; heat transfer is improved by the decreased liquid film thickness surrounding confined bubbles inside the narrow BPHE channels, which is the main characteristic of microscale boiling. As often observed in macroscale boiling, the inertial forces of the liquid and vapor phases cause an unsteady annular film, leading to premature partial dryout. The onset of dryout is accelerated at the lower saturation pressure, due to increased surface tension, another microscale-like characteristic. Higher surface tension retains liquid in sharp corners of the corrugated channel, leaving lateral surface areas of the wall dry. Two-phase pressure drop increases with mass flux and vapor quality, but with decreasing saturation pressure. Dryout decreases the friction factor due to the much lower viscosity of the gas phase in contact with the wall. Several semi-empirical transition criteria and correlations buttress the current analyses that the thermal-fluidic characteristics peculiar to BPHEs might be due to macro-microscale transition in boiling.

Heat extraction and drop impact regimes occurring when a local portion of a horizontal flat-fan air mist impinges the active surface of a Pt disk hold at T w from ∼60 to 1200 °C are investigated. Boiling curves comprise single-phase, nucleate boiling (NB), transition boiling (TB), and film boiling (FB). Mists are generated under wide ranges of water and air flow rates, and the disk is placed at center and off-center positions along the mist footprint major axis. Conditions generate a wide spectrum of water impact flux, w, droplet diameter, d d , droplet velocity, u zs , and impingement angle. Heat flux extracted, −q, along each boiling regime correlates very well with expressions involving Reynolds, Weber, and Jakob numbers evaluated in terms of local average characteristics of free nonimpinging mists—w, volume mean diameter, d 30 , normal volume weighted mean velocity, u z , v —and T w ; close estimation indicates that hydrodynamic and thermal forces are well accounted. During arrival of sparse parcels visualization of mist–wall interactions, using a high speed camera aided by laser illumination, allows determination of the predominance area diagram of droplet impact regimes in terms of normal impinging Weber number, We z , and T w . The regimes include stick, rebound, spread, and splash; the last subclassified as fine-, crown- and jet-atomization. Arrival of parcels in close succession is ubiquitous causing rapid surface flooding and leading to formation of discontinuous well agitated thick liquid films, which interacts longer with the surface than drops in sparse parcels, acting as heat sinks for longer periods of time.

Most of the existing empirical correlations for wall heat transfer during flow boiling show a limited predictability stemming mainly from so-called the suppression and enhancement factors, which are introduced to describe the boiling heat transfer hypothetically by a combination of nucleate pool boiling and single-phase forced convection. There is no physical basis strongly supporting the determination of these factors. This study, to avoid such limitations, presents a distinctive approach to the modeling of wall boiling heat transfer utilizing the physical concept of wall heat flux partitioning. A new correlation of local boiling heat transfer coefficient is composed of primary heat transfer mechanisms of transient conduction and forced convection. Heat transfer areas of these mechanisms replace the suppression and enhancement factors in the new correlation and are determined empirically by dimensionless analysis. Based on an experimental database of 3187 points collected for saturated boiling of various working fluids flowing inside channels of different configurations, the new correlation is obtained and compared with existing correlations widely used. The evaluation highlights much better predictability of the present correlation. While the other correlations show relatively large scattering with over 30% deviation from the experimental data, the newly proposed correlation shows an excellent agreement with a deviation of less than 10%. The good predictability would be from the well-structured physical basis and make the new correlation promising in practical boiling heat transfer analysis.

The effect of staggered-array water impinging jets on boiling heat transfer was investigated by a simultaneous measurement between boiling visualization and heat transfer characteristics. The boiling phenomena of staggered-array impinging jets on hot steel plate were visualized by 4K UHD video camera. The surface temperature and heat flux on hot steel plate was determined by solving 2-D inverse heat conduction problem, which was measured by the flat-plate heat flux gauge. The experiment was made at jet Reynolds number of Re = 5,000 and the jet-to-jet distance of staggered-array jets of S/D n = 10. Complex flow interaction of staggered-array impinging jets exhibited hexagonal flow pattern like as honey-comb. The calculated surface heat transfer profiles show a good agreement with the corresponding boiling visualization. The peak of heat flux accords with the location which nucleate boiling is occurred at. In early stage, the positions of maximum heat flux locate at the stagnation point of each jet as the relatively low surface temperature is shown at their positions. At the elapsed time of 10 s, the flat shape of heat flux profile is formed in the hexagonal area where the interacting flow uniformly cools down the wetted surface. After that, the wetted area continuously enlarges with time and the maximum heat flux is observed at its peripheral. These results point out that the flow interaction of staggered-array jets effectively cools down the closer area around jets and also show an expansion of nucleate boiling and suppression of film boiling during water jet cooling on hot steel plate. [This work was supported by the KETEP grant funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Korea (Grant No. 20142010102910).]

A phase change heat transfer from liquid to gas is studied in nanoscopic framework using molecular dynamics. Water on structured Si substrate is observed from molecular viewpoint after employing heat flux at a constant rate. Initially, we observe that water settles down on the substrate occupying the free space within the notch to obtain its static shape maintaining intramolecular configuration based on attractive and repulsive forces in neighboring hydroxyl bonds. Upon applying heat flux, we observe that the molecular vibration increases which repels neighbors to make the packing loose. Molecular dilution initiated at the notch and then proceeds to the rest domain. Progressive loosening of the molecules leads to the formation of vapor bubbles which increase in size with time. The rate of growth of this bubble is studied as a function of surface geometry parameters such as notch height, notch width, notch type, and notch spacing. Present simulations enrich the knowledge of surface characteristics on boiling heat transfer from fundamental principle in the molecular domain.

In this paper, the flow patterns during water flow boiling instability in pin-fin microchannels were experimentally studied. Three types of pin-fin arrays (in-line/circular pin-fins, staggered/circular pin-fins, and staggered/square pin-fins) were used in the study. The flow instability started to occur as the outlet water reached the saturation temperature. Before the unstable boiling, a wider range of stable boiling existed in the pin-fin microchannels compared to that in the plain microchannels. Two flow instability modes for the temperature and pressure oscillations, which were long-period/large-amplitude mode and short-period/small-amplitude mode, were identified. The temperature variation during the oscillation period of the long-period/large-amplitude mode can be divided into two stages: increasing stage and decreasing stage. In the increasing stage, bubbly flow, vapor-slug flow, stratified flow, and wispy flow occurred sequentially with time for the in-line pin-fin microchannels; liquid single-phase flow, aforementioned four kinds of two-phase flow patterns, and vapor single-phase flow occurred sequentially with time for the staggered pin-fin microchannel. The flow pattern transitions in the decreasing stage were the inverse of those in the increasing stage for both in-line and staggered pin-fin microchannels. For the short-period/small-amplitude oscillation mode, only the wispy flow occurred. With the increase of heat flux, the wispy flow and the vapor single-phase flow occupied more and more time ratio during an oscillation period in the in-line and staggered pin-fin microchannels.

Techniques based on temperature-sensitive paints (TSP) to measure time-resolved temperature and heat transfer distributions at the interface between a wall and fluid during pool and flow boiling are described. The paints are excited using ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs), and changes in fluorescence intensity are used to infer local temperature differences across a thin insulator from which heat flux distribution is obtained. Advantages over infrared (IR) thermometry include the ability to use substrates that are opaque to IR (e.g., glass, plexiglass and plastic films), use of low-cost optical cameras, no self-emission from substrates to complicate data interpretation, high speed, and high spatial resolution. TSP-based methods to measure wall heat transfer distributions are validated and then demonstrated for pool and flow boiling.