A study of pool boiling of a dielectric liquid (PF 5060) from single-layered enhanced structures was conducted. The parameters investigated were the heat flux, the width of the microchannels and the microchannel pitch. The boiling performance of the enhanced structures increases with increase in channel width and decrease in channel pitch. Simple single line curve fits are provided as a practical way of predicting the data over the entire nucleate boiling regime. The influence of confinement on the thermal performance of the enhanced structures was also assessed. The main parameter investigated was the top space (0 mm { 13 mm). High-speed visualization was used as a tool . For the total confinement ( = 0 mm), the heat transfer performance of the enhanced structures was found to depend weakly on the channel width. For >0 mm, the enhancement observed for plain surfaces in the low heat fluxes regime is not present for the present enhanced structure. The maximum heat flux for a prescribed 85 oC surface temperature limit increased with the increase of the top spacing, similar to the plain surfaces case. Two characteristic regimes of pool boiling have been identified and described: isolated flattened bubbles regime and coalesced bubbles regime. A semi-analytical predictive model applicable to pool boiling under confinement is developed. The model requires a limited number of empirical constants and is capable of predicting the experimental heat flux within 30%.

Pool boiling process is frequently encountered in a number of engineering applications. It is difficult to exactly predict the heat transfer coefficient. This is because the boiling phenomenon is rather complex and influenced by many factors, such as surface condition, heater size, geometry, material, arrangement of heated rods, and refrigerants, etc. The key boiling parameters (bubble dynamics data) such as bubble departure diameter, frequency, velocity and nucleation site density will be varied in such different heated surface resulting in the different effect of heat transfer. Furthermore, more fundamental of the physical phenomenon can be obtained. This study was performed experimentally. R-134a and R-600a were used as refrigerants. The surface condition will be changed with plasma spray coating. It is expected that the surface condition can affect the nucleate boiling heat transfer in certain degree. In addition, using the high speed digital vide camera and LDV to measure the bubble diameter and dynamics of R-600a and R-134a while growing. According of the results of experiments. The boiling curves in different situation were drawn and the influences of heat transfer coefficients by bubble velocity was also examinate. Finally, to broaden our basic understanding of different characteristics of refrigeration surface condition and heat transfer coefficient, thermal design data of a flooded type evaporator of high performance as well as more and further physical insight of the above-stated nucleate boiling heat transfer can be acquired. The results will hopefully be helpful not only for the academia but for the industry.

Abstract Pool boiling process is frequently encountered in a number of engineering applications. However, it is difficult to exactly predict the heat transfer coefficient. This is because the boiling phenomenon is rather complex and influenced by many factors, such as surface condition, heater size, geometry, material, arrangement of heated rods, and refrigerants, etc. The key boiling parameters (bubble dynamics data) such as bubble departure diameter, frequency and nucleation site density will be varied in such different heated surface resulting in the different effect of heat transfer. The present study is ain at providing the pool boiling data for plasma coating and helical wire wrapped enhanced tubes. Furthermore, more fundamental of the physical phenomenon can be obtained. This study was performed experimentally. R-134a and R-600a were used as refrigerants. The surface condition will be changed with plasma spray coating and helical wire wrapped. It is expected that the surface condition can affect the nucleate boiling heat transfer in certain degree. In addition, boiling visualization was also made to broaden our basic understanding of the bubble diameter and dynamics while growing. Thermal design data of a flooded type evaporator of high performance as well as more and further physical insight of the above-stated nucleate boiling heat transfer can be acquired. The results will hopefully be helpful not only for the academia but for the industry.

Abstract Pool boiling process is frequently encountered in a number of engineering applications. However, it is difficult to exactly predict the heat transfer coefficient. This is because the nucleate pool boiling phenomenon is rather complex and influenced by many factors, such as surface roughness, areas of heater, material, geometry, arrangement of heated rods, and refrigerants, etc. The key boiling parameters (bubble dynamics data) such as bubble departure frequency, diameter and active nucleation site density will be varied in such different heated surface resulting in the different effect of heat transfer. This study was performed experimentally. R-134a was used as refrigerants, and the present study is aim at providing the pool boiling data for smooth and plasma coating enhanced tube bundles. It is expected that the surface condition, amount of test tubes, geometric of bundles and different heat flux can affect the nucleate boiling heat transfer in certain degree. In addition were calculated and developed that heat transfer coefficients and relevant corrections. Furthermore, more fundamental of the physical phenomenon can be obtained. According to the results of experiments, Boiling curves and calculations of the bundle factors and geometry factors were subsequently secured. The enhanced heat transfer coefficients with coated tube bundles are 1.1-2.0 times higher than smooth tube bundles. The 1.5-2.3 and 1.1-3.8 bundle factors obtained from the smooth tube bundles and coated tube bundles respectively. The geometry factors were about 1 for all arrangements studied herein. Thermal design data of a flooded type evaporator of high performance as well as more and further physical insight of the above-stated nucleate boiling heat transfer can be acquired. The results will hopefully be helpful not only for the academia but for the industry.

Abstract Pool boiling process is frequently encountered in a number of engineering applications. It is difficult to exactly predict the heat transfer coefficient. This is because the boiling phenomenon is rather complex and influenced by many factors, such as surface condition, heater size, geometry, material, arrangement of heated rods, and refrigerants, etc. The key boiling parameters (bubble dynamics data) such as bubble departure diameter, frequency, velocity and nucleation site density will be varied in such different heated rod pitches resulting in the different effect of heat transfer. Furthermore, more fundamental of the physical phenomenon can be obtained. Pool boiling heat transfer of R-134a is investigated experimentally on twin tube arrangement. The tube pitch is 1.65 and 2.5. The surface condition was prepared with plasma spray coating. In addition, using the high-speed digital camera and LDV, the bubble diameter and dynamics of R-134a were measured while growing. The boiling curves in different twin-tube pitches were drawn and the influence of bubble velocity on heat transfer coefficients was also examined. Finally, to broaden our basic understanding of different arrangement of heated rods and heat transfer mechanisms, thermal design data of a flooded type evaporator of high performance as well as more and further physical insight of the above-stated nucleate boiling heat transfer can be acquired. The results would hopefully be helpful not only for the academia but also for the industry.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.) PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Boiling heat transfer is a critical process in large-scale industrial applications such as steam engines and heat exchangers in power plants, and in microscopic heat transfer devices such as heat pipes and microchannels for cooling electronic chips. Enhancing boiling heat transfer thus has great significance on lots of energy transportation and utilization systems. Recent studies has suggested that micro/nano structured surfaces can produce considerably different boiling heat transfer curves than normal plain surfaces, resulting in different values of the critical heat flux (CHF) and heat transfer coefficient (HTC). In this thesis, pool boiling on several new micro/nano structured surfaces was experimentally investigated to further understand the mechanism of boiling heat transfer and increase boiling performance. We first evaluated enhanced boiling heat transfer on three kinds of micro/nano structured super-hydrophilic surfaces: 1) nanowire coated super-hydrophilic surfaces, 2) hybrid microscale cavity and nanowire structured surfaces and 3) hybrid microscale pillar and nanowire structured surfaces. All three surfaces showed significant enhancement of CHF and HTC compared to plain silicon surfaces. Combined micro/nano structured surfaces presented better performance than nanowire coated surfaces suggesting that both active nucleation density and surface roughness significantly affect boiling heating transfer. Experimental investigations indicate an optimum design both in size (~ 20μ𝑚) and density (between 0 and 10000=cm^2) of cavities for microscale cavity/nanowire structured surfaces. The highest CHF and peak HTC values were obtained on microscale pillar/nanowire structured surfaces. Among the test surfaces, the largest enhancements of CHF and peak HTC were 228% and 298%, respectively, compared to plain silicon surfaces. For a better understanding of the boiling phenomena, pool boiling on super-hydrophobic surfaces was also studied. We found that, for super-hydrophobic surfaces, the major heat transfer mechanism at the initial boiling regime is natural convection of liquid water. In conclusion, micro/nano structured surfaces can greatly influence nucleate boiling heat transfer. The various physical attributes employed with the structured surfaces further revealed the profound influence of surface topography on enhancing boiling heat transfer. / 2031-01-01

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering / Amy R. Betz / Boiling is a very effective way of heat transfer due to the latent heat of vaporization. Large amount of heat can be removed as bubbles form and leave the heated surface. Boiling heat transfer has lots of applications both in our daily lives and in the industry. The performance of boiling can be described with two important parameters, i.e. the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and the critical heat flux (CHF). Enhancing the performance of boiling will greatly increase the efficiency of thermal systems, decrease the size of heat exchangers, and improve the safety of thermal facilities. Boiling heat transfer is an extremely complex process. After over a century of research, the mechanism for the HTC and CHF enhancement is still elusive. Previous research has demonstrated that fluid properties, system pressures, surface properties, and heater properties etc. have huge impact on the performance of boiling. Numerous methods, both active and passive, have been developed to enhance boiling heat transfer. In this work, the effect of pressure was investigated on a plain copper substrate from atmospheric pressure to 45 psig. Boiling heat transfer performance enhancement was then investigated on Teflon© coated copper surfaces, and graphene oxide coated copper surfaces under various system pressures. It was found that both HTC and CHF increases with the system pressure on all three types of surfaces. Enhancement of HTC on the Teflon© coated copper surface is contributed by the decrease in wettability. It is also hypothesized that the enhancement in both HTC and CHF on the graphene oxide coated surface is due to pinning from micro and nanostructures in the graphene oxide coating or non-homogeneous wettability. Condensation and freezing experiments were conducted on engineered surfaces in order to further characterize the pinning effect of non-homogeneous wettability and micro/nano structure of the surface.

This present study seeks to contribute detailed visualization data on a pool boiling experiments using HFE-7000. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the time resolved whole field liquid velocity. Bubble dynamic parameters such as nucleation site density, bubble departure diameter, contact angles and frequency were obtained in shadowgraphy measurements. Infrared thermometry with an IR camera was used for observation of temperature fluctuations of nucleation sites. The experiments were taken for the heat flux from 0.042 kW/m^2 to 0.266 kW/m^2, six experimental conditions in total. To provide a supplementary description of heat transfer mechanism, a novel bubble characterization technique, reflection interference contrast microscopy (RICM), was used to obtain detailed information on bubble dynamic parameters on the microscopic scale. Bubble diameter was obtained from RICM pictures. Comparison between the experiments results and previous empirical correlation were made. Agreements and discrepancies were discussed.

An acoustic field is used to increase the critical heat flux of a copper boiling heat transfer surface. The increase is a result of the acoustic effects on the vapor bubbles. Experiments are being performed to explore the effects of an acoustic field on vapor bubbles in the vicinity of a rigid heated wall. Work includes the construction of a novel heater used to produce a single vapor bubble of a prescribed size and at a prescribed location on a flat boiling surface for better study of an individual vapor bubble s reaction to the acoustic field. Work also includes application of the results from the single bubble heater to a calibrated copper heater used for quantifying the improvements in critical heat flux.

The effect of nano-structured surfaces on pool boiling heat transfer is explored in this study. Experiments are conducted in a cubical test chamber containing fluoroinert coolant (PF5060, Manufacturer: 3M Co.) as the working fluid. Pool boiling experiments are conducted for saturation and subcooled conditions. Three different types of ordered nano-structured surfaces are fabricated using Step and flash imprint lithography on silicon substrates followed by Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) or Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE). These nano-structures consist of a square array of cylindrical nanofins with a longitudinal pitch of 1 mm, transverse pitch of 0.9 mm and fixed (uniform) heights ranging from 15 nm – 650 nm for each substrate. The contact angle of de-ionized water on the substrates is measured before and after the boiling experiments. The contact-angle is observed to increase with the height of the nano-fins. Contact angle variation is also observed before and after the pool boiling experiments. The pool boiling curves for the nano-structured silicon surfaces are compared with that of atomically smooth single-crystal silicon (bare) surfaces. Data processing is performed to estimate the heat flux through the projected area (plan area) for the nano-patterned zone as well as the heat flux through the total nano-patterned area, which includes the surface area of the fins. Maximum heat flux (MHF) is enhanced by ~120 % for the nanofin surfaces compared to bare (smooth) surfaces, under saturation condition. The pool boiling heat flux data for the three nano-structured surfaces progressively overlap with each other in the vicinity of the MHF condition. Based on the experimental data several micro/nano-scale transport mechanisms responsible for heat flux enhancements are identified, which include: “microlayer” disruption or enhancement, enhancement of active nucleation site density, enlargement of cold spots and enhancement of contact angle which affects the vapor bubble departure frequency.