Due
to its outstanding heat transfer performance, flow boiling
has a wide range of applications in many fields, especially for cooling
of electronic devices. Previous studies have shown that the liquid
replenishment on the downstream of the heating surface is the critical
restriction of the increase of the critical heat flux (CHF). In this
work, we designed a series of heterogeneous surfaces with fractal
treelike hydrophilic networks for flow boiling enhancement. The micro-pin-finned
surface structures are expected to increase the CHF and reduce the
superheat by its high wickability. Moreover, by virtue of the efficient
transport capacity of treelike networks, the fractal hydrophilic paths
are designed to serve as the liquid delivery channels for the liquid
replenishment on the downstream of the heating surface. The heterogeneous
surfaces improve the comprehensive boiling heat transfer performance,
especially the CHF, which is 82.2% higher than that of the smooth
surface and 5.4% higher than the surface homogeneously covered by
the microstructure with twice of the extended surface area. This work
provides reference for the design of heterogeneous surfaces with both
smooth and structured parts to increase the flow boiling CHF to some
extent.