No abstract

The effect of wettability on boiling heat transfer (BHT) coefficient and critical heat flux (CHF) in pool boiling of water on hydrophilic surfaces having different contact angles was investigated. Hot alkali solutions were utilized to promote cupric and cuprous oxide growth which exhibited micro and nanoscale structures on copper surfaces, with thicknesses on the order of a couple of micrometers. These structure and surface energy variations result in different levels of wettability and roughness while maintaining the effusivity of the bare copper surface. The study showed that the BHT coefficient has an inverse relationship to wettability; the BHT coefficient decreases as wettability increases. Furthermore, it was shown that this dependency between BHT coefficient and wettability is more significant than the relationship between BHT coefficient and surface roughness. The CHF was also found to increase with increases in wettability and roughness. For the most hydrophilic surface tested in this study, CHF values were recorded near the 2,000 kW/m2 mark. This value is compared with maximum values reported in literature for water on non-structured flat surfaces without area enhancements. Based on these results it is postulated that there exists a true hydrodynamic CHF limit for pool boiling with water on flat surfaces, very near 2,000 kW/m2, independent of heater material, representing an 80% increase in the limit suggested by Zuber [1].

Flow boiling was investigated on a hydrophobic surface by coating Teflon® onto a 1×1 cm2 copper surface, resulting in contact angle of 118°. The images depicted were taken using distilled water flowing at 299 kg/m2s with 3°C subcooling. In the first series, the number of active nucleation sites increased as heat flux increased. For lower values of heat flux (< 80 kW/m2), vapor bubbles remained almost stationary on the surface. The hydrophobic contact angle makes the horizontal component of surface tension force act radially outward, causing the bubble interface to grow. This leads to increased triple contact line and increased vertical component surface force. The buoyancy force due to the vapor bubble volume appears to be insufficient to overcome this vertical force for liftoff. This explains the stationary bubbles observed at the lower heat fluxes. The bubbles show an increase in size and number with heat flux. After this increasing trend, the bubble continues to grow larger when heat flux is higher than 80 kW/m2, eventually leading to the dryout at 117.5 kW/m2. The later bubble growth at high heat fluxes is caused primarily by the coalescences of neighboring bubbles. These larger bubbles are more affected by flow induced drag forces and move downstream. This can be seen in the lower sequential series at 100 kW/m2. The larger vapor masses slide across the surface, continue to absorb smaller bubbles as they move downstream, and are swept off the surface.

Superhydrophilic Nano-Structured Coatings (SHNC) were discovered during pool boiling experiments using nanofluids with alumina nanoparticles. During nucleate boiling, the nanoparticles are deposited on the heater surface, forming a uniform oxide coating. These coatings have been demonstrated to greatly decrease the liquid contact angle observed on the surfaces, both by increased surface roughness and increased surface energy. An illustration of this roughness, within 1 μm thickness, can be seen in the 3-D optical microscope mapping of a SHNC surface, top right. These highly wetting structures can greatly enhance macro-level mass transfer effects, such as capillary action. The series of images on the left depict the wickability enhancement achieved by SHNC coating inside a 0.92 mm internal diameter aluminum tube. In the tube coated with SHNC, a 21 μl water droplet disappeared in 183 milliseconds, resulting in an average wicking speed along the pipe of 17 cm/sec. The bare aluminum tube does not wick at all, even as it is pushed into the droplet. The bottom right sequence shows the wettability enhancement responsible for this behavior; an 8 μl water droplet is dropped onto both a SHNC-coated and a bare aluminum surface from a height of 1 cm. The droplet on the SHNC-coated surface spreads instantaneously due to the high wettability of the SHNC, while the droplet on the bare aluminum remains aggregated as a hemisphere.

Depicted are sequences of water drop impacts on copper, taken at 16,000 fps. The copper is treated with a heated alkali solution, resulting in a highly wetting, nanoscale structured, cupric oxide layer with a static contact angle approaching 0° with water. In the top series an 11.5 µl water droplet impacts this surface from 60 mm. The interfacial forces are large compared with the inertia; the low advancing contact angle of the expanding front continues to pull the droplet outward and absorbs the droplet without any rebound. The droplet spreads to cover the entire 0.5x0.5 in2 surface in less than 500 ms. After the surface energy of the oxide layer is reduced with silane, this surface becomes highly non-wetting with a static contact angle of ~160° and a hysteresis <5°. The lower sequence shows the 11.5 µl water droplet dropped from the same height. The large advancing contact angle creates an inverted wedge at the triple line, and the advancing front quickly reaches a maximum diameter at 3 ms and begins to recede inward while the top of the droplet is still moving downward, creating a donut shape. The receding front collides at the center forcing a jet of liquid up and out. This jet pulls the remainder of the liquid upward at a decreasing velocity, relative to the head. This is apparent as the jet splits into secondary droplets at 16ms (which moves out of frame at 18 ms) and again at 22 ms, referred to as S-1 and S-2, respectively. As the S-2 splits off, surface tension force cause it to slow at 25 ms, while the parent droplet moves up to collide with, and impart momentum to S-2. They remain detached; S-2 moves out of view, the parent falls. This bouncing behavior continues until the energy is dissipated and the droplets come to rest. This can be seen as the parent drop rebounds again at 100ms, S-2 at 130 ms and S-1 in the final frame, forming a tertiary droplet. These surfaces are being studied for their effects on two phase heat transfer.