Effects of channel dimension,heat flux,and mass flux on flow boiling regimes in microchannels

Experiments are conducted with a perfluorinated dielectric fluid, Fluorinert FC-77, to investigate the effects of channel size and mass flux (225–1420 kg/m²s) on microchannel flow boiling regimes by means of high-speed photography. Seven different silicon test pieces with parallel microchannels of widths ranging from 100 to 5850 μm, all with a depth of 400 μm, are considered. Flow visualizations are performed with a high-speed digital video camera while local measurements of the heat transfer coefficient are simultaneously obtained. The visualizations and the heat transfer data show that flow regimes in the microchannels of width 400 μm and larger are similar, with nucleate boiling being dominant in these channels over a wide range of heat flux. In contrast, flow regimes in the smaller microchannels are different and bubble nucleation at the walls is suppressed at a relatively low heat flux for these sizes. Two types of flow regime maps are developed and the effects of channel width on the flow regime transitions are discussed.     

Measurements and high-speed visualizations of flow boiling of a dielectric fluid in a silicon microchannel heat sink

Experiments were conducted to investigate flow boiling heat transfer to a dielectric fluid in a silicon chip-integrated microchannel heat sink. Twenty-four microchannels, each 389 μm × 389 μm in cross-section, were fabricated into the 12.7 mm × 12.7 mm silicon substrate. High-speed visualizations (at 12,500 frames per second) were performed simultaneously with heat transfer and pressure drop measurements to investigate the physics of flow boiling in parallel microchannel arrays. At low heat fluxes, bubbly flow is dominant, with the bubbles coalescing to form vapor slugs as the heat flux is increased. At high heat fluxes, the flow regimes in the downstream portion of the microchannels are characteristic of alternating wispy-annular flow and churn flow, while flow reversal is observed in the upstream region near the microchannel inlet. Local heat transfer measurements, obtained at three flow rates ranging from 35 to 60 ml/min, show that at lower heat fluxes, the heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing heat flux. The heat transfer coefficient in fully developed boiling is seen to be independent of flow rate in this range. At higher heat fluxes (exceeding 542, 673, 730 kW/m², respectively, for flow rates of 35, 47 and 60 ml/min), this trend is reversed, and the heat transfer coefficient decreases with further increases in heat flux due to partial dryout in some of the microchannels. Heat fluxes at which fully developed boiling is achieved depend on the flow rate. The pressure drop in fully developed boiling increases with increasing heat flux and is independent of flow rate for the test conditions considered in this work.     

Subcooled flow boiling of R-134a in vertical channels of small diameter

Subcooled flow boiling heat transfer for refrigerant R-134a in vertical cylindrical tubes with 0.83, 1.22 and 1.70 mm internal diameter was experimentally investigated. The effects of the heat flux, q″ = 1–26 kW/m², mass flux, G = 300–700 kg/m² s, inlet subcooling, ΔT_sub,i = 5–15 °C, system pressure, P = 7.70–10.17 bar, and channel diameter, D, on the subcooled boiling heat transfer were explored in detail. The results are presented in the form of boiling curves and heat transfer coefficients. The boiling curves evidenced the existence of hysteresis when increasing the heat flux until the onset of nucleate boiling, ONB. The wall superheat at ONB was found to be essentially higher than that predicted with correlations for larger tubes. An increase of the mass flux leads, for early subcooled boiling, to an increase in the heat transfer coefficient. However, for fully developed subcooled boiling, increases of the mass flux only result in a slight improvement of the heat transfer. Higher inlet subcooling, higher system pressure and smaller channel diameter lead to better boiling heat transfer. Experimental heat transfer coefficients are compared to predictions from classical correlations available in the literature. None of them predicts the experimental data for all tested conditions.     

Experimental investigation of flow boiling characteristics in a cross-linked microchannel heat sink

This paper experimentally investigates flow boiling characteristics in a cross-linked microchannel heat sink at low mass fluxes and high heat fluxes. The heat sink consists of 45 straight microchannels each with a hydraulic diameter of 248 μm and heated length of 16 mm. Three cross-links, of width 500 μm, are introduced in the present microchannel heat sink to achieve better temperature uniformity and to avoid flow mal-distribution. Flow visualization, flow instability, two-phase pressure drop, and two-phase heat transfer measurements are conducted using the dielectric coolant FC-72 over a range of heat flux from 7.2 to 104.2 kW/m², mass flux from 99 to 290 kg/m² s, and exit quality from 0.01 to 0.71. Thermochromic liquid crystals are used in the present study as full-field surface temperature sensors to map the temperature distribution on the heat sink surface. Flow visualization studies indicate that the observed flow regime is primarily slug. Visual observations of flow patterns in the cross-links demonstrate that bubbles nucleate and grow rapidly on the surface of the cross-links and in the tangential direction at the microchannels’ entrance due to the effect of circulations generated in those regions. The two-phase pressure drop strongly increases with the exit quality, at x_e,o < 0.3, and the two-phase frictional pressure drop increases by a factor of 1.6–2 compared to the straight microchannel heat sink. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing exit quality at a constant mass flux, which is caused by the dominance of the nucleation boiling mechanism in the cross-link region.     

Nucleate boiling and critical heat flux of HFE-7100 in horizontal narrow spaces

The pool boiling heat transfer and critical heat flux CHF of saturated HFE-7100 at atmospheric pressure on a confined smooth copper surface were experimentally studied. The horizontal upward boiling surface was confined by a face-to-face parallel unheated surface. We analysed the effects obtained by changing the diameter of the unheated surface and the gap between the boiling surface and the adiabatic surface. The gap values investigated were s = 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.5 mm. To confine the circular boiling surface (d = 30 mm), two different Plexiglas discs were used: one with a diameter D = 30 mm, equal to that of the copper boiling surface, and the other with a diameter D = 60 mm, equal to that of the overall test section support. For each configuration, boiling curves were obtained up to the thermal crisis. For both configurations, it was observed that, at low wall superheat, the effect of confinement was not significant if Bo > 1, while for Bo ? 1 the heat transfer coefficient increased as the channel width s decreased. By contrast, at high wall superheat, a drastic reduction in both heat transfer and CHF was seen when the channel width s decreased; this reduction was less pronounced when the smaller confinement disc (D = 30 mm) was used. CHF data were also compared with the values predicted by literature correlations.     

The critical role of channel cross-sectional area in microchannel flow boiling heat transfer

Experiments are conducted with a perfluorinated dielectric fluid, Fluorinert FC-77, to identify the critical geometric parameters that affect flow boiling heat transfer and flow patterns in microchannels. In recent work by the authors (Harirchian and Garimella, 2009), seven different silicon test pieces containing parallel microchannels of widths ranging from 100 to 5850 μm, all with a depth of 400 μm were tested and it was shown that for a fixed channel depth, the heat transfer coefficient was independent of channel width for microchannels of widths 400 μm and larger, with the flow regimes in these microchannels being similar; nucleate boiling was also found to be dominant over a wide range of heat fluxes. In the present study, experiments are performed with five additional microchannel test pieces with channel depths of 100 and 250 μm and widths ranging from 100 to 1000 μm. Flow visualizations are performed using a high-speed digital video camera to determine the flow regimes, with simultaneous local measurements of the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop. The aim of the present study is to investigate as independent parameters the channel width and depth as well as the aspect ratio and cross-sectional area on boiling heat transfer in microchannels, based on an expanded database of experimental results. The flow visualizations and heat transfer results show that the channel cross-sectional area is the important governing parameter determining boiling mechanisms and heat transfer in microchannels. For channels with cross-sectional area exceeding a specific value, nucleate boiling is the dominant mechanism and the boiling heat transfer coefficient is independent of channel dimensions; below this threshold value of cross-sectional area, vapor confinement is observed in all channels at all heat fluxes, and the heat transfer rate increases as the microchannel cross-sectional area decreases before premature dryout occurs due to channel confinement.     

Experimental investigation of vapor bubble growth during flow boiling in a microchannel

Experiments were conducted to analyze flow boiling characteristics of water in a single brass microchannel of 25 mm length, 201 μm width, and 266 μm depth. Different heat flux conditions were tested for each of two different mass flow rates over three different values of inlet fluid temperature. Temporal and spatial surface temperature profiles were analyzed to show the relative effect of axial heat conduction on temperature rise along the channel length and the effect of flow regime transition on local surface temperature oscillation. Vapor bubble growth rate increased with increasing wall superheat. The slower a bubble grew, the further it was carried downstream by the moving liquid. Bubble growth was suppressed for increased mass flux while the vapor bubble was less than the channel diameter. The pressure spike of an elongating vapor bubble was shown to suppress the growth of a neighboring bubble by more than 50% of its volume. An upstream progression of the Onset of Bubble Elongation (OBE) was observed that began at the channel exit and progressed upstream. The effects of conjugate heat transfer were observed when different flow regime transitions produced different rates of progression for the elongation sequence. Instability was observed at lower heat fluxes for this single channel experiment than for similar studies with multiple channels.     

Flow instability and transient flow patterns inside intercrossed silicon microchannel array in a micro-timescale

The objective of this study is to visualize the transient flow patterns and heat transfer behaviors at low mass fluxes and high heat fluxes. The silicon chip consists of the intercrossed microchannel array with 10 triangular microchannels with the hydraulic diameter of 155.4 μm, and five transverse trapezoid microchannels, separating the triangular microchannels into six independent zones. The chip is horizontally positioned. Liquid acetone is used as the working fluid. Tests were performed in the range of mass flux 40–80 kg/m² s and heat flux 107–216 kW/m².     

Flow boiling enhancement of FC-72 from microporous surfaces in minichannels

The microporous coatings can remarkably enhance the liquid boiling heat transfer. Therefore, they are promising to be introduced into minichannels in the design of the cooling system of high-power microchips. However, the flow boiling heat transfer characteristics from microporous surfaces in the minichannels have not been extensively studied, and the pertinent knowledge is rather fragmentary. The present research is an experimental investigation on flow boiling of a dielectric fluid FC-72 from microporous coating surfaces in horizontal, rectangular minichannels of 0.49, 0.93 and 1.26 mm hydraulic diameter. Effects of coating structural parameters, such as the particle diameter and coating thickness, were investigated to identify the optimum microporous coating for heat transfer enhancement. All microporous surfaces in this paper were found to significantly enhance FC-72 flow boiling heat transfer in minichannels. With the optimum coating, the heat transfer coefficients could be 7-10 times those of the uncoated surface, and the boiling wall temperature was reduced by about 10 K. The flow boiling phenomena in the present minichannels were distinctly different from those in conventional-sized channels, due to the wall confinement effect on vapor bubbles. The confinement effect was evaluated by taking the contributions of the liquid mass flux and channel size into consideration. It was found that the very strong confinement effect was unfavorable with respect to flow boiling enhancement of the microporous coatings in the minichannels.     

Effects of heat flux,mass flux,vapor quality,and saturation temperature on flow boiling heat transfer in microchannels

Flow boiling heat transfer with the refrigerants R-134a and R-245fa in copper microchannel cold plate evaporators is investigated. Arrays of microchannels of hydraulic diameter 1.09 and 0.54 mm are considered. The aspect ratio of the rectangular cross section of the channels in both test sections is 2.5. The heat transfer coefficient is measured as a function of local thermodynamic vapor quality in the range −0.2 to 0.9, at saturation temperatures ranging from 8 to 30 °C, mass flux from 20 to 350 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, and heat flux from 0 to 22 W cm⁻². The heat transfer coefficient is found to vary significantly with heat flux and vapor quality, but only slightly with saturation pressure and mass flux for the range of values investigated. It was found that nucleate boiling dominates the heat transfer. In addition to discussing measurement results, several flow boiling heat transfer correlations are also assessed for applicability to the present experiments.     

Carbon dioxide flow boiling in a single microchannel - Part II: Heat transfer

Flow boiling heat transfer coefficients of CO₂ have been measured in a single microchannel. Experiments were carried out in a horizontal stainless steel tube of 0.529 mm inner diameter, for three temperatures (−10, −5 and 0 °C), with the mass flux ranging from 200 to 1200 kg/m² s and the heat flux varying from 10 to 30 kW/m². The investigation covered qualities from zero to the dryout inception, i.e. pre-dryout conditions. Compared to larger microchannels and positive temperatures, a higher contribution of convective boiling was found, with a larger heat transfer coefficient than for pure nucleate boiling. Mainly two heat transfer regimes were found, depending on the boiling number (Bo). For Bo > 1.1 × 10⁻⁴, the heat transfer coefficient was highly dependent on the heat flux and moderately influenced by the quality and the mass flux. For Bo < 1.1 × 10⁻⁴, the heat transfer coefficient was hardly affected by the heat flux but strongly influenced by the quality and the mass flux. In addition, dryout results were reported. The effect of the mass flux on the dryout inception quality was found to be highly dependent on the heat flux and the saturation temperature.     

Adiabatic and diabatic two-phase venting flow in a microchannel

The growth and advection of the vapor phase in two-phase microchannel heat exchangers increase the system pressure and cause flow instabilities. One solution is to locally vent the vapor formed by capping the microchannels with a porous, hydrophobic membrane. In this paper we visualize this venting process in a single 124 μm by 98 μm copper microchannel with a 65 μm thick, 220 nm pore diameter hydrophobic Teflon membrane wall to determine the impact of varying flow conditions on the flow structures and venting process during adiabatic and diabatic operation. We characterize liquid velocities of 0.14, 0.36 and 0.65 m/s with superficial air velocities varying from 0.3 to 8 m/s. Wavy-stratified and stratified flow dominated low liquid velocities while annular type flows dominated at the higher velocities. Gas/vapor venting can be improved by increasing the venting area, increasing the trans-membrane pressure or using thinner, high permeability membranes. Diabatic experiments with mass flux velocities of 140 and 340 kg/s/m² and exit qualities up to 20% found that stratified type flows dominate at lower mass fluxes while churn-annular flow became more prevalent at the higher mass-flux and quality. The diabatic flow regimes are believed to significantly influence the pressure-drop and heat transfer coefficient in vapor venting heat exchangers.     

Experimental study on the heat transfer coefficient of water flow boiling in mini/microchannels

The heat transfer coefficients of the evaporative water flow in mini/microchannels are studied experimentally to explore the novel heat dissipation for high power electronics. Two sets of parallel channels which are 61 channels with hydraulic diameter of 0.293 mm and 20 channels with hydraulic diameter of 1.2 mm are investigated respectively. The inlet and outlet temperatures of fluids, and the temperatures beneath the channels are measured to calculate the heat dissipation of the evaporative water in channels. The experiments are carried out with the mass flow rates range from 11.09 kg/(m² s) to 44.36 kg/(m² s) for minichannels and 49.59 kg/(m² s) to 198.37 kg/(m² s) for microchannels. The effective heat flux range from 5 W/cm² to 50 W/cm², and the resulted outlet vapor qualities range from 0 to 0.8. The relations of the heat transfer coefficient with heat flux and vapor quality are analyzed according to the results. The experimental heat transfer coefficients are compared with the prediction of latest developed correlations. A new correlation takes the effect of Bond number is proposed, and be verified that it is effective to predict the heat transfer coefficient of both minichannels and microchannels in a large range of vapor qualities.     

Two-phase flow of refrigerants in 85 μm-wide multi-microchannels: Part II – Heat transfer with 35 local heaters

This article is the second part of a study on flow boiling of R236fa and R245fa. This part presents the heat transfer coefficients obtained in a 12.7 mm silicon evaporator composed of 135 microchannels with 85 μm wide and 560 μm high channels separated by 46 μm wide fins. There were 35 local heaters and temperature measurements arranged in a 5 × 7 array. The heat transfer results were uniform in the lateral direction to the flow (attributable to the inlet restriction) and a function of the heat flux, vapor quality and mass flux. The steady-state standard deviation of the local base temperature was less than 0.2 °C, inferring that the boiling process was very stable. For wall heat fluxes over 45 kW/m², the heat transfer coefficient curves were V-shaped, decreasing for intermittent flow regimes and increasing for annular flow. The three-zone model of Thome et al. (2004) was the best heat transfer prediction method when setting the dryout thickness equal to the channel roughness.     

Influence of the aspect ratio on boiling flows in rectangular mini-channels

This article presents experiments conducted with two single rectangular mini-channels of same hydraulic diameter (1.4 mm) and different aspect ratios for conditions of horizontal boiling flow. The Forane® 365 HX used was subcooled (ΔT_sub = 15 °C) for all the boiling curves presented in the paper. Local heat transfer coefficients were measured for heat flux ranging from 25 to 62 kW m⁻² and mass flux from 200 kg m⁻² s⁻¹ to 400 kg m⁻² s⁻¹. The boiling flows were observed with two different cameras (depending on the flow velocity) through a visualization window. The flow patterns in the two channels were compared for similar conditions. The results show that the boiling heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop values are different for the two single mini-channels. For low heat flux condition, the channel with lowest aspect ratio (H/W = 0.143) has a higher heat transfer coefficient. On the other hand, for high heat flux condition, the opposite situation occurs, namely the heat transfer coefficient becomes higher for the channel with highest aspect ratio (H/W = 0.43). This is probably due to the earlier onset of dryout in the channel with lowest aspect ratio. For the two cases of heating, the pressure drop for the two-phase flow remains lower for the channel with lowest aspect ratio. These results show that the aspect ratio plays a substantial role for boiling flows in rectangular channels. As for single-phase flows, the heat transfer characteristics are significantly influenced (even though the hydraulic diameter remains the same) by this parameter.     

Bubble nucleation characteristics in pool boiling of a wetting liquid on smooth and rough surfaces

Quantitative measurements are obtained from high-speed visualizations of pool boiling at atmospheric pressure from smooth and roughened surfaces, using a perfluorinated hydrocarbon (FC-77) as the working fluid. The boiling surfaces are fabricated from aluminum and prepared by mechanical polishing in the case of the smooth surface, and by electrical discharge machining (EDM) in the case of the roughened surface. The roughness values (R_a) are 0.03 and 5.89 μm for the polished and roughened surfaces, respectively. The bubble diameter at departure, bubble departure frequency, active nucleation site density, and bubble terminal velocity are measured from the monochrome movies, which have been recorded at 8000 frames per second with a digital CCD camera and magnifying lens. Results are compared to predictions from existing models of bubble nucleation behavior in the literature. Wall superheat, heat flux, and heat transfer coefficient are also reported.     

Boiling regimes in uncoated polydimethylsiloxane microchannels with a fine wire heater

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a type of gas permeable media widely used in microfluidic applications. In this work multiphase patterns and boiling curves in PDMS square microchannels were experimentally investigated. Very fine platinum wires with diameter of 50 μm were embedded through the microchannels and serving as heater. The multiphase patterns were visualized by means of high speed CCD camera with microscope. Curves of temperature versus heat flux on the wire heaters were plotted. Based on the evolution of multiphase patterns, five boiling regimes were classified, that is, single phase, bubble formation, slug formation, slug dominated and dry out. Interestingly, the bubbles were generated from the channel walls rather than the heater surface, and so-called “droplets-in-bubble” phenomenon drew attention in which bunches of microdroplets kept forming, growing, and disappearing within the big bubbles. The boiling curves were plotted and compared to boiling in open space and in glass tubes. The heat transfer in the PDMS microchannels got deteriorated when the bubbles formed.     

Flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of R123 and R134a in a micro-channel

Flow boiling heat transfer in a single circular micro-channel of 0.19 mm ID has been experimentally investigated with R123 and R134a for various experimental conditions: heat fluxes (10, 15, 20 kW/m²), mass velocities (314, 392, 470 kg/m² s), vapor qualities (0.2–0.85) and different saturation pressures (158, 208 kPa for R123; 900, 1100 kPa for R134a). The heat transfer trends between R123 and R134a are clearly distinguished. Whether nucleate boiling is suppressed at low vapor quality or not determines the heat transfer trend and mechanism in the flow boiling of micro-channels. High convective heat transfer coefficients in the two-phase flow of micro-channels enables nucleate boiling to be suppressed even at low vapor quality, depending on the wall superheat requirement for nucleate boiling. In the case of early suppression of nucleate boiling, specifically R123, heat transfer is dominated by evaporation of thin liquid films around elongated bubbles. In the contrary case, namely R134a, nucleate boiling is dominant heat transfer mechanism until its suppression at high vapor quality and then two-phase forced convection heat transfer becomes dominant. It is similar to the heat transfer characteristic of macro-channels except the enhancement of nucleate boiling and the short forced convection region.     

Influence of nanoparticle surface coating on pool boiling

The purpose of this work is to study the effects of nanostructured surface coatings on boiling heat transfer and CHF. Boiling experiments are performed on a 100 μm diameter platinum wire immersed in saturated water or pentane at 1 bar. Nanostructured surface coating is obtained by deposition of charged γ-Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles (average diameter of 10 nm) on the platinum wire. Two different processes are compared: vigorous boiling and electrophoresis.The deposition of nanoparticles onto the heated surface induces a significant increase of the boiling critical heat flux (CHF) related to the increase of wettability. It also induces a decrease of the heat transfer coefficient when the wire is entirely covered with nanoparticles. The critical heat flux enhancement depends on the wettability of the fluid compared with the bare heater. Different physical mechanisms are also studied to explain the evolution of the characteristic parameters of the boiling on nanostructured surfaces.     

Pool boiling heat transfer of tandem tubes provided with the novel microstructures

The paper presents experimental data on pool boiling heat transfer of tandem tubes, arranged one above the other in the same vertical plane. The outer surface of the tubes is provided with the novel microstructures. The structure elements are micropins created by electrolytic deposition of copper upon the tube, using a specially treated polycarbonate foil. By this technique the pins diameter can be varied from 0.1 μm up to 25 μm, the pins height goes up to 100 μm at densities up to 1 × 10⁹ pins/cm² and pins inclination almost up to 180° regarding the base surface. Micropins with several different inclinations can be created simultaneously on the same surface.Experiments were conducted with two different microstructures using the refrigerant R134a and the highly wetting Fluorinert liquid FC-3284 at pressures of 5-9 bar and 0.5-1.5 bar, respectively. The advantages of the novel microstructure regarding the boiling heat transfer for tandem tubes turned out to be practically the same as for a single tube arrangement. Microstructured tubes have the superheat independent on the heat flux, they show a very low boiling inception superheats (below 2 K), are highly effective in comparison with a technically smooth tubes, and operate stable over the long periods of time.