Monodisperse Spray Cooling of Small Surface Areas at High Heat Flux

Spray cooling is an effective method to remove high heat fluxes from electronic components. To understand the physical mechanisms, this work studies heat transfer rates from single and dual nozzle distilled water sprays on a small heated surface (1.3 mm × 2 mm). Thermal ink jet atomizers generate small droplets, 33 μm diameter, at known frequencies, leading to controlled spray conditions with a monodisperse stream of droplets interacting with the hot surface. Of particular interest in this work is the dissipated heat flux and its relation to the liquid film thickness, the surface superheat, and the cooling mass flow rate. Experimental results show the heat flux scales to the cooling mass flow rate. In comparison to published spreading–splashing correlations, these experiments indicate that the drops impinge on the liquid film and spread without generating splashing, leading to high-efficiency stable heat transfer. Surface temperatures range from 120 to 140°C. In addition, the liquid film thickness is investigated in relation to the heater superheat and a stable thin film is seen at superheats beyond 20°C. The efficiency of the spray system is inversely related to the film thickness and may be due to ejection of liquid from the surface due to bursting of vapor bubbles.     

Experimental study of impingement spray cooling for high power devices

An experimental study of a closed-loop impingement spray cooling system to cool a 1 kW 6U electronic test card has been conducted. The system uses R134a as working fluid in a modified refrigeration cycle. The spray from four vapor assisted nozzles is arranged to cover a large ratio of the heated area of the card. Investigations are currently focused on effects of mass flow rate, nozzle inlet pressure and spray chamber pressure. Experimental results are promising with a stable average temperature of around 23 °C being maintained at the heated surface, and maximum temperature variation of about 2 °C under suitable operating conditions. Heat transfer coefficients up to 5596 W/m² K can be achieved with heat flux input around 50,000 W/m² in this study. It is found that cooling performance improved with increasing mass flow rate, nozzle inlet pressure and spray chamber pressure, whereas uniformity of the heated surface temperature can only be improved with higher mass flow rate and nozzle inlet pressure. The mechanisms for the enhanced performance are also presented.     

The effects of micro-structured surfaces on multi-nozzle spray cooling

Experiments were conducted to investigate heat transfer characteristics of spray cooling with eight nozzles for micro-structured surfaces included cubic pin fins and straight pin fins of different sizes. Liquid volume flow rate ranged from 2.46 × 10⁻² m³/s/m² to 3.91 × 10⁻² m³/s/m² and the corresponded inlet pressures changed from 0.28 MPa to 0.6 MPa by keeping the inlet water temperature between 20.4 °C and 24.31 °C. And the input power of heat block varied from 180 W to 1080 W. The results show that the heat transfer performances of straight fins2 and straight fins3 are the best in single phase zone, but the cubic pin fins is better in two phase zone. Notably, the critical point between single phase zone and two phase zone shifts to left with the increasing of liquid volume flow rate. Moreover, with the liquid volume flow rate increasing, the heat transfer coefficient increases as well, but straight fins1 and polished surface are not sensitive to this change. For a deeper analysis of the heat transfer enhancement, a dimensionless number (DM) is created to characterize heat transfer performance of different microstructures in single phase heat transfer. We verified the dimensionless number using experimental results in this study and previous literature. Furthermore, the micro-structured surfaces have negligible effects on temperature distribution except for cubic pin fins.     

Experimental Study on the Heat Transfer Characteristics of an Evaporating Falling Film on a Horizontal Plain Tube

In this paper, an experimental investigation on the heat transfer of saturated water falling film on a single horizontal plain tube is presented. The water film falling on the outside of the tube has been heated by the condensing steam flowing in the tube, and the heat transfer coefficient between the water film and the steam has been measured. Experiments were performed at saturation temperatures of liquid film and steam as 58°C and 61°C, and 61°C and 65°C, a tube pitch of 57.16 mm, heat fluxes from 10 to 50 kW m^-2, and film flow rate per unit of length of the tube up to 0.12 kg m^?1 s^?1. Brass plain tubes with external diameters of 25.4 mm and lengths of 950 mm were used in the experiments. The experimental results show that the heat transfer coefficient increases with the increasing film flow rate and heat flux, and the quality of vapor has an obvious influence on the heat transfer performance of falling film evaporation. The coupling of condensation and evaporation heat transfer inside and outside the tube is investigated qualitatively in this paper.     

Evolution and heat transfer after droplet impact on heated liquid film with vapor bubbles inside

Abstract

To better understand the droplet impact on the liquid film with vapor bubbles in spray cooling, a two-dimensional symmetric numerical model is set up using the Coupled Level Set and Volume of Fluid method (CLSVOF). Three simulative cases are taken, considering the effects of film thickness and the presence of vapor bubbles or not. The main purposes of this paper are to investigate the evolution of vapor bubbles during droplet impact and to identify the effect of vapor bubbles on convection heat transfer. The results indicate that vapor bubbles will detach from the wall and break up at the surface of the liquid film during droplet impact, for a thinner film, later a “sawtooth” liquid film appears at the non-impact region. However, for a thicker film, no bubbles rupture and the detached bubbles will flow inside the liquid film and then some will merge into larger bubbles. In the presence of vapor bubbles, the crater radius is larger for a thicker liquid film. The presence of vapor bubbles will facilitate the subcooled droplet to spread to the heated wall, leading to a substantial increase in surface heat flux.     

Theoretical and experimental study of the effects of spray inclination on two-phase spray cooling and critical heat flux

Experiments were conducted with PF-5052 liquid sprays impacting a 1.0 × 1.0 cm² heated test surface at different inclination angles, flow rates, and subcoolings. Inclination angle had no noticeable effect on the single-phase or two-phase regions of the boiling curve. Maximum CHF was always achieved with the spray impinging normal to the test surface; increasing angle of inclination away from the normal decreased CHF appreciably. Video analysis showed inclined sprays produced lateral liquid film flow towards the farthest downstream region of the test surface. The film liquid provided partial resistance to dryout despite the weak volumetric spray flux in the downstream region. A new theoretical model of the spray’s impact area and volumetric flux proves this decrease is the result of a sharp reduction in the fraction of the test surface area that is directly impacted by the spray. Combining the model and video results with a previous point-based CHF correlation for normal sprays is shown to accurately predict the effects of orientation angle on CHF for different nozzles and operating conditions.     

Flow Boiling in an Inclined Channel With Downward-Facing Heated Upper Wall

Wall boiling and bubble population balance equations combined with a two-fluid model are employed to predict boiling two-phase flow in an inclined channel with a downward-facing heated upper wall. In order to observe the boiling behavior on the inclined, downward-facing heated wall, a visualization experiment was carried out with a 100 mm × 100 mm of the cross section, 1.2-m-long rectangular channel, inclined by 10° from the horizontal plane. The size of the heated wall was 50 mm by 750 mm and the heat flux was provided by Joule heating using DC electrical current. The temperatures of the heater surface were measured and used in calculating heat transfer coefficients. The wall superheat for 100 kW/m² heat flux and 200 kg/m²s mass flux ranged between 9.3°C and 15.1°C. High-speed video images showed that bubbles were sliding, continuing to grow, and combining with small bubbles growing at their nucleation sites in the downstream. Then large bubbles coalesced together when the bubbles grew too large to have a space between them. Finally, an elongated slug bubble formed and it continued to slide along the heated wall. For these circumstances of wall boiling and two-phase flow in the inclined channel, the existing wall boiling model encompassing bubble growth and sliding was improved by considering the influence of large bubbles near the heated wall and liquid film evaporation under the large slug bubbles. With this improved model, the predicted wall superheat agreed well with the experimental data, while the RPI model largely overpredicted the wall superheat.     

Turbine endwall film cooling with combustor-turbine interface gap leakage flow: Effect of incidence angle

This paper is focused on the film cooling performance of combustor-turbine leakage flow at off-design condition. The influence of incidence angle on film cooling effectiveness on first-stage vane endwall with combustor-turbine interface slot is studied. A baseline slot configuration is tested in a low speed four-blade cascade comprising a large-scale model of the GE-E³Nozzle Guide Vane (NGV). The slot has a forward expansion angle of 30 deg. to the endwall surface. The Reynolds number based on the axial chord and inlet velocity of the free-stream flow is 3.5 × 10⁵ and the testing is done in a four-blade cascade with low Mach number condition (0.1 at the inlet). The blowing ratio of the coolant through the interface gap varies from M = 0.1 to M = 0.3, while the blowing ratio varies from M = 0.7 to M = 1.3 for the endwall film cooling holes. The film-cooling effectiveness distributions are obtained using the pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique. The results show that with an increasing blowing ratio the film-cooling effectiveness increases on the endwall. As the incidence angle varies from i = +10 deg. to i = ?10 deg., at low blowing ratio, the averaged film-cooling effectiveness changes slightly near the leading edge suction side area. The case of i = +10 deg. has better film-cooling performance at the downstream part of this region where the axial chord is between 0.15 and 0.25. However, the disadvantage of positive incidence appears when the blowing ratio increases, especially at the upstream part of near suction side region where the axial chord is between 0 and 0.15. On the main passage endwall surface, as the incidence angle changes from i = +10 deg. to i = ?10 deg., the averaged film-cooling effectiveness changes slightly and the negative incidence appears to be more effective for the downstream part film cooling of the endwall surface where the axial chord is between 0.6 and 0.8.     

Experimental investigation on film cooling performance of pressure side in annular cascades

Experimental investigations were conducted to study the film cooling performance in a low speed annular cascades using Thermochromic Liquid Crystal (TLC) technique. The test blade was placed in the second stage, where 18 blades were installed with chord length of 124.3 mm and height of 99 mm. A film hole with diameter of 4 mm, angled 28° to the tangential of the pressure surface in streamwise, was set in the middle span of the blade. The Reynolds number based on the outlet mainstream velocity and the blade ...     

Study on trench film cooling on turbine vane by large-eddy simulation

Abstract

Combined with infrared thermography experiments, large-eddy simulation was used for studying trench film cooling on C3X vane model at the mainstream Reynolds number of 2.5?×?10⁵ based on the chord length, and nominal blowing ratios of 0.5 and 1.5. The instantaneous and time-averaged characteristics for trench film cooling were analzyed in detail. Inside the trench, a pair of recirculation vortices promotes the coolant spreading on spanwise direction, mitigates the jet penetration into mainstream, and improves cooling effectiveness. On pressure surface, hairpin vortices play the dominate role in the unsteady flow fields. Downstream of the trench, a streamwise vortex pair corresponding to anti-CRVP (Counter rotating vortex pair) is generated on both sides of hairpin structures, and causes high turbulent fluctuation. On suction surface, the mainstream boundary layer transits from laminar to turbulent flow in the upstream of the coolant exit, and large numbers of small-scale vortices dominate the flow dynamics. Spectrum analysis of pressure signals shows that, on pressure surface, trench and round-hole film cooling both exhibit strong periodicity. On suction surface, randomness is more pronounced. The statistical characteristics of velocity and temperature fluctuations were also discussed in detail. Overall, significant cooling augmentation by trench hole is seen on both the suction and pressure surfaces, especially at high blowing ratio.     

Natural convection in a triangular cavity filled with air under the effect of external air stream cooling

Natural convection in a triangular cavity filled with air is investigated numerically. In this paper, the cavity is exposed to air stream cooling exerted on its sides and it is heated by a fixed heat flux from the base. The air inside the cavity is assumed to be laminar and obeying Boussinesq approximation. The governing equations are solved numerically using the finite volume technique with SIMPLE algorithm. The results are achieved with a range of Rayleigh number (10⁴ < Ra < 10⁷), free stream Reynolds number (10³ < Re_∞ < 1.5 × 10⁴), four aspect ratios (AR = 0.25, 0.5, 0.866, and 1) and five inclination angles (? = 0°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 90°). The influence of these parameters is displayed on the stream function, isotherms lines, local and average Nusselt numbers. The results reveal that the heat transfer rate increases as Rayleigh number, free stream Reynolds number and AR increase. The highest heat transfer rate is obtained at ? = 0° while the lowest one is obtained at ? = 90°. Furthermore, as the AR augments, the local and average Nusselt numbers are enhanced and the stream function is formed of two symmetric counter‐rotating vortices.     

Étude numérique de l'évaporation dans un courant d'air humide laminaire d'un film d'eau ruisselant sur une plaque inclinée

Numerical study of the evaporation in laminar humid air flow of a liquid film flowing over an inclined plate. By using an implicit centered finite differences method with a non-uniform grid, the authors study numerically the evaporation of a thin liquid film flowing over an inclined plate in a forced humid-air flow. They consider the existence of two-dimensional laminar boundary-layers with variable physical properties and show that the term of enthalpy diffusion is always negligible, whether the plate is adiabatic, isothermal or heated by a constant heat flux density. By using in the liquid film transfer equations which are one-dimensional, partially two-dimensional and two-dimensional, the authors additionally show the following features. If the plate is adiabatic, the liquid mass flow rate is without influence on the transfers and the gas–liquid interface behaves like an isotherm surface at rest. In this case, one may use a one-dimensional model in the film whatever liquid mass flow rate is. If the wall is isotherm or heated by a constant heat flux and when the liquid mass flow rate is less than 10⁻³ kg·m⁻¹·s⁻¹, the one-dimensional model is sufficient; if it is included in the interval [10⁻³ kg·m⁻¹·s⁻¹, 10⁻² kg·m⁻¹·s⁻¹[, the partially two-dimensional model is useful; if it is superior to 10⁻² kg·m⁻¹·s⁻¹, it is necessary to use the two-dimensional model. Generally, whatever the thermal conditions on the plate are, heat transfer is dominated by the liquid-vapor transition.     

Correlation of critical heat flux and two-phase friction factor for subcooled convective boiling in structured surface microchannels

Critical heat flux (CHF) and pressure drop of subcooled flow boiling are measured for a microchannel heat sink containing 75 parallel 100 μm × 200 μm structured surface channels. The heated surface is made of a Cu metal sheet with/without 2 μm thickness diamond film. Tests and measurements are conducted with de-ionized water, de-ionized water +1 vol.% MCNT additive solution, and FC-72 fluids over a mass velocity range of 820–1600 kg/m² s, with inlet temperatures of 15(8.6)°C, 25(13.6)°C, 44(24.6)°C, and 64(36.6)°C for DI water (FC-72), and heat fluxes up to 600 W/cm². The CHF of subcooled flow boiling of the test fluids in the microchannels is measured parametrically. The two-phase pressure drop is also measured. Both CHF and the two-phase friction factor correlation for one-side heating with two other side-structured surface microchannels are proposed and developed in terms of the relevant parameters.     

Theoretical model for annular flow condensation in rectangular micro-channels

This study examines the pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics of annular condensation in rectangular micro-channels with three-sided cooling walls. A theoretical control-volume-based model is proposed based on the assumptions of smooth interface between the annular liquid film and vapor core, and uniform film thickness around the channel’s circumference. Mass and momentum conservation are applied to control volumes encompassing the liquid film and the vapor core separately. The model accounts for interfacial suppression of turbulent eddies due to surface tension with the aid of a new eddy diffusivity model specifically tailored to shear-driven turbulent films. The model predictions are compared with experimental pressure drop and heat transfer data for annular condensation of FC-72 along 1 × 1 mm² parallel channels. The condensation is achieved by rejecting heat to a counterflow of water. The data span FC-72 mass velocities of 248–367 kg/m² s, saturation temperatures of 57.8–62.3 °C, qualities of 0.23–1.0, and water mass flow rates of 3–6 g/s. The data are also compared to predictions of previous separated flow mini/micro-channel and macro-channel correlations. While some of the previous correlations do provide good predictions of the average heat transfer coefficient, they fail to capture axial variation of the local heat transfer coefficient along the channel. The new model accurately captures the pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient data in both magnitude and trend, evidenced by mean absolute error values of 3.6% and 9.3%, respectively.     

Application of the TLVA model for predicting film cooling under rotating frames

An in-house three-dimensional Navier–Stokes code was used to evaluate the advantages of anisotropic turbulence models over the classical isotropic turbulence models for the prediction of film cooling under rotating conditions. The anisotropic turbulence model we chose was the two-layer TLVA model and the isotropic turbulence models were the standard k–ε, the k–ω and the SST models. For the purpose of validation of numerical results, a test rig was setup and experiments were carried out for film cooling under rotation. The test model had a flat test surface with a 4 mm diameter straight circular cooling hole in 30° inclined injection and it rotated at four different speeds of 0, 500, 800 and 1000 rpm. Experiments were accomplished with the momentum ratio set to be 0.285, the Reynolds number kept at 1.45 × 10⁵ and the averaged density ratio at 1.026. Comparison indicated that the TLVA anisotropic turbulence model preformed best against its isotropic counterparts and produced the closest local cooling effectiveness η to the experimental results of all conditions. Detailed flow and temperature field analysis revealed that the improvement of anisotropic turbulence model was mostly due to its ability in accurately simulating the film lateral spreading. On the contrary, the isotropic turbulence models heavily underestimated the lateral spreading of the cooling film and this led to the overshooting of cooling effectiveness along the centerline regions and the undershooting for the rest parts. Apart from the cooling effectiveness, deflection of the cooling film from centerline due to Coriolis and centrifugal forces under coordinate rotation was also best predicted by the TLVA model.     

Effect of void fraction models on the film thickness of R134a during downward condensation in a vertical smooth tube

In the present study, the void fraction and film thickness of pure R-134a flowing downwards in a vertical condenser tube are indirectly determined using relevant measured data together with an annular flow model and various void fraction models reported in the open literature. The vertical test section is a countercurrent flow double tube heat exchanger with refrigerant flowing down in the inner tube and cooling water flowing upward in the annulus. The inner tube is made from smooth copper tubing of 9.52 mm outer diameter with a length of 0.5 m. The experimental runs are carried out at average saturated condensing temperatures of 40 and 50 °C, and mass velocities are around 456 kg m^− 2 s^− 1, over the vapour quality range 0.82–0.93, while the heat fluxes are between 45.60 and 50.90 kW m^− 2. Analysis based on simple void fraction models of the annular flow pattern are presented for forced convection condensation of pure R134a, taking into account the effect of the different saturation temperatures at high mass flux conditions. The comparisons of calculated film thickness show that the void fraction models of Spedding and Chen, and Chisholm and Armand are the most accurate ones with the experimental data due to their low deviation with Whalley's annular flow model over 35 void fraction models presented in this paper.     

Turbulent film condensation on a half oval body

The paper is an investigation of turbulent film condensation on a half oval body. The high tangential velocity of the vapor flow at the boundary layer is determined from potential flow theory. The Colburn analogy is used to define the local liquid-vapor interfacial shear which occurs when the high velocity vapor flows across the body surface. The paper then presents a discussion of the results obtained for the local dimensionless film thickness and heat transfer characteristics. Furthermore, the present paper discusses the influence of Froude number, sub-cooling temperature and system pressure on mean Nusselt number.     

Condensation studies using cross-corrugated polymer film compact heat exchanger

Heat transfer has been examined in a polymer film compact heat exchanger between cross flowing liquid and gas. Condensation of water vapour through a non-condensable gas was used to supply heat through a corrugated poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK) film to a cooling liquid. Measurements of heat transfer rates in the system indicated overall heat transfer coefficients in the range of 50–300 W m⁻² K⁻¹ were achieved. Visual analysis and pressure drop measurements were used to provide insight into the fluid flow and the models used for heat transfer.     

Thermophysical properties of molten tungsten measured with an electrostatic levitator

Thermophysical properties of liquid and supercooled tungsten were measured using non‐contact techniques in combination with an electrostatic levitator. Over the 3125–3707 K temperature range, the density measurements can be expressed as ρ (T) = 16.7(± 0.33)× 10³ ? 1.08(± 0.08) (kg? m^?3) with T_m = 3695 K, leading to a volume expansion coefficient of 6.6×10^?5 K^?1. In addition, over the 3398–3695 K temperature range, the surface tension (γ) and viscosity (η) data can be expressed respectively as γ (T) = 2.48× 10³(± 75) ? 0.31(± 0.08) (T ? T_m) (10^?3 N? m^?1) and η (T) = 0.11(± 0.02) exp[12.8(± 4.1) × 10⁴/(RT)] (10^?3 Pa? s). © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 35(2): 152–164, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20101     

Heat transfer for flow boiling of water and critical heat flux in a half‐heated round tube under low‐pressure conditions

Heat transfer for flow boiling of water and critical heat flux (CHF) experiments in a half‐circumferentially heated round tube under low‐pressure conditions were carried out. To clarify the flow patterns in the heated section, experiments in the round tube under the same conditions were also carried out, and their results were compared. The experiments were conducted with atmospheric‐pressure water in test sections with inner diameter D = 6 mm, heated length L = 360 mm, inlet water subcooling ΔT_in = 80 K, and mass velocity G from 0 to 2000 kg/(m²·s) for the half‐circumferentially heated round tube and from 0 to 7000 kg/(m²·s) for the full‐circumferentially heated tube. The experimental data demonstrated that the wall temperature near the outlet of the half‐circumferentially heated tube remained almost the same until CHF. It was found that burnout occurred when the flow regime changed from churn flow to annular flow, and the liquid film on the heated wall dried out although liquid film on the unheated wall remained. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 31(3): 149–164, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.10022