A comparison between spray cooling and film flow cooling during the rewetting of a hot surface

The paper is dealing with a research carried out at the Institute of Thermal-Fluid Dynamics to investigate the rewetting of a hot surface. The rewetting of the hot surface by spray cooling has been analyzed in previous works. After the droplet impingement, the liquid film falls along the surface, and rewetting by falling film takes place. The experiment was characterized by a 1-dimensional liquid spray, i.e., drops having a uniform, constant diameter, impinging on the heated surface. The cooling rate of the hot surface has been detected as a function of wall temperature, drop diameter and velocity, and impact point of the spray. The working feature of the spray is based on the varicose rupture of the liquid jet: imposing a periodic (symmetrical) perturbation with appropriate amplitude and frequency on the jet surface, the flow is “constrained” to break soon after leaving the nozzle, eventually obtaining constant diameter drops, depending on the nozzle diameter and liquid velocity. In this paper, previous results with spray cooling are compared with experimental runs in which the spray injection is replaced with a falling film all along the test section. The rewetting velocity has been calculated from the response of the thermocouples placed on the heated wall and using a digital image system based on the video image registered during the runs.