Saturated flow boiling characteristics in single rectangular minichannels: effect of aspect ratio

In this study, saturated flow boiling characteristics of deionized water in single rectangular minichannels are investigated experimentally. A special attention is paid to the effect of aspect ratio (channel width to depth, W_ch/H_ch) on the heat transfer and total pressure drop. Experiments are conducted for various values of the mass flux and the wall heat flux. Flow visualization is used as a complementary technique for a deeper physical understanding of flow phenomena. The results show that the channel aspect ratio has a significant effect on both the local two-phase heat transfer coefficient and the total pressure drop. In general manner, the aspect ratio of 1 presents the highest heat transfer coefficients, while the aspect ratio of 0.25 demonstrates the lowest ones. On the other hand, the lowest values of the pressure drop are obtained at the extreme values of the aspect ratio (0.25 and 4).