This work conducts a multiphase multi-physics numerical study on this mixed mode cooling system, where evaporation of a liquid water film augments the convective cooling by evaporative heat and mass transfer. The mathematical framework consists of coupled mass, momentum, energy equation with species transport of air and evaporated water in the gas phase. Author’s prior works on perfectly flat surface predicted a minimum 500% increase of heat transfer coefficient in presence of a dual mode heat transfer. Current effort conducts a parametric study based on the different surface roughness structures over a broad range of Reynolds number condition. Array of circular, squared and triangular shaped grooves have been introduced along the surface exposed to the evaporating liquid. The cooling performances have been analyzed for different surface roughness structures and then compared against the flat film configuration. Furthermore, pressure drop across the liquid-gas interface has also been analyzed to predict the pumping power of the system. Model predicts that triangular shaped grooves exhibits a maximum ∼22% decrease in thermal resistance with a minimum pressure drop (∼5.5 times) across the interface. The square shaped surface morphology achieves 18% reduction in thermal resistance, with a penalty of pressure drop increase by a factor of ∼8. In comparison, circular grooves exhibit similar thermal performance but with a slightly a lower pressure drop (∼7 times). The numerical predictions have been compared with similar experimental findings and qualitative agreement was observed.

No abstract

Phase change driven heat transfer has been the topic of interest for a significantly long time. However, in recent years on demand sweating boosted evaporation which requires substantially less amount of the liquid medium has drawn attention as a possible way of increasing/supplementing heat transfer under convective conditions where the convective heat transfer coefficient has already reached its maximum value as well as where dry cooling is a desired objective. In this study, a numerical study is conducted to obtain insight into the ‘hybrid’ system where evaporation and convection both contribute to the heat transfer effect. The system modeled consists of evaporation of thin liquid (water) film under a laminar flow condition. The mathematical model employed consists of coupled conservation equations of mass, species, momentum and energy for the convection-evaporation domain (gaseous), with only mass and energy conservation being resolved in the liquid film domain. The evaporative mass flux is obtained from a modified Hertz-Knudsen relation which is a function of liquid-vapor interface temperature and pressure. A two-dimensional rectangular domain with a pre-prescribed thin liquid water film representative of an experiment is simulated with the developed model. The thin rectangular liquid film is heated by uniform heat flux and is placed in the convection-evaporation domain with an unheated starting length. A moving boundary mesh is applied via the“Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian” technique to resolve the receding liquid interface resulting from evaporation. The prescribed relative displacement of the moving interface is calculated from the net mass flux due to evaporation and is governed by the principle of mass conservation. Simulations were conducted over a range of Reynolds number, heat flux conditions and liquid film thickness. The numerical predictions indicate that under convective-evaporative conditions the overall heat transfer coefficient increases significantly (∼factor of a five) in comparison to the purely forced convection scenario. An increase in the heat transfer coefficient is observed with Reynolds number and vice versa for film thickness. A critical Reynolds number is identified beyond which the heat transfer coefficient does not continue to increase significantly rather tends to plateau out.

With an escalating need to find ways to reduce the water consumption in industrial cooling system, on-demand hybrid cooling has been a topic of great interest. The main concept of this cooling method is centered upon the utilization of huge exchange of enthalpy associated with phase change process in a conventional convective cooling system. In this study, a multidimensional multi-physics model has been employed to study a system that undergoes this dual mode cooling process where both convection and evaporation contribute to the heat transfer process. The computational domain considered is comprised of a thin liquid film that undergoes evaporation with constant heat flux provided from the bottom and a convective loading of laminar air flow above it. Evaporation takes place at the liquid-gas interface and the evaporated mass is being carried away by the incoming air, hence augmenting the convective cooling through the phase change process. This is an extension of our prior work where the surface structure modification (i.e. undulated surface) on the performance of this proposed hybrid cooling method is numerically investigated. Array of hemispherical structures have been introduced as the surface introducing the heat flux to the liquid film. The objective is to increase the surface to volume ratio and decrease the thermal resistance across the liquid film. The predictions indicate that with the increase in the height of the undulated surface the thermal resistance across the liquid film tends to decrease. Results from these simulations show that a ∼50% reduction in the thermal resistance can be achieved by the surface structure modification while the net evaporation flux can be doubled compared to a flat film configuration.

No abstract