Latest progress on nanotechnology aided boiling heat transfer enhancement: A review

Schlieren-based simultaneous mapping of bubble dynamics and temperature gradients in nucleate flow boiling regime: Effect of flow rates and degree of subcooling

In recent years, the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method has been widely employed to simulate boiling phenomena [A. Markus and G. Hazi, Phys. Rev. E 83, 046705 (2011); Biferale et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 104502 (2012); Li et al., Phys. Rev. E 96, 063303 (2017); Wu et al., Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 126, 773 (2018)]. However, a very important issue still remains open, i.e., how does boiling occur in the LB simulations? For instance, the existing LB studies showed that the boiling on a hydrophobic surface begins at a lower wall superheat than that on a hydrophilic surface, which qualitatively agrees well with experimental studies, but no one has yet explained how this phenomenon appears in the LB simulations and what happened in the simulations after changing the wettability of the heating surface. In this paper, the LB boiling mechanism is revealed by analyzing boiling on a flat surface with mixed wettability and boiling on a structured surface with homogeneous wettability. Through a theoretical analysis, we demonstrate that, when the same wall superheat is applied, in the LB boiling simulations the fluid density near the heating surface decreases faster on a hydrophobic surface than that on a hydrophilic surface. Accordingly, a lower wall superheat can induce the phase transition from liquid to vapor on a hydrophobic surface than that on a hydrophilic surface. Furthermore, a similar theoretical analysis shows that the fluid density decreases fastest at concave corners in the case of a structured surface with homogeneous wettability, which explains why vapor bubbles are nucleated at concave corners in the LB simulations of boiling on structured surfaces.

How does boiling occur in lattice Boltzmann simulations

Performance evaluation of alumina nanofluids and nanoparticles-deposited surface on nucleate pool boiling phenomena

Performance of SiO2-water nanofluids for single bubble-based nucleate pool boiling heat transfer

The effect of nanoparticles on a single bubble-based nucleate pool boiling phenomenon under subcooled conditions has been studied. Water (as the base fluid) and two different concentrations of water-silica nanofluids (0.005% and 0.01% V/V) have been employed as the working fluids. The boiling experiments have been conducted in a specially designed chamber, wherein an ITO-coated heater substrate has been used to induce single bubble nucleation. Measurements have been performed in a completely non-intrusive manner using one of the refractive index-based diagnostics techniques, namely, rainbow schlieren deflectometry. Thus, the thermal gradients prevailing in the boiling chamber have directly been mapped as a two-dimensional distribution of hue values that are recorded in the form of rainbow schlieren images. The schlieren-based measurements clearly revealed the plausible influence of nanoparticles on the strength of temperature gradients prevailing in the boiling chamber. As compared to the base fluid, the experiments with dilute nanofluids showed that the suspended nanoparticles tend to diffuse (homogenize) the strength of temperature gradients, both in the vicinity of the heated substrate and in the thermal boundary layer enveloping the vapor bubble. An overall reduction in the bubble volume and dynamic contact angle was seen with increasing concentrations of dilute nanofluids. In addition, the vapor bubble was found to assume a more spherical shape at higher concentrations of dilute nanofluids in comparison to its shape with water-based experiments. Clear oscillations of the vapor bubble in the subcooled pool of liquids (water and/or nanofluids) were observed, the frequency of which was found to be significantly reduced as the nanoparticle concentration was increased from 0% (water) to 0.01% (V/V). A force balance analysis has been performed to elucidate the plausible mechanisms explaining the observed trends of the oscillation frequencies of the vapor bubble.

Experiments on the effects of nanoparticles on subcooled nucleate pool boiling

Dependence of single vapor bubble dynamics and heat transfer rates on varying concentration of SiO2 nanoparticles for a range of subcooled conditions (0–9 °C) has been experimentally studied under nucleate pool boiling configuration. Non-invasive measurements have been carried out using rainbow schlieren deflectometry. Results on bubble dynamics showed that the bubble diameter and aspect ratio decrease with increasing subcooling levels as well as concentration of nanofluids. The frequency of bubble oscillations was found to increase first and then decrease with increasing subcooling levels while it decreases monotonically with increasing nanofluid concentration. Bubble departure frequency increased significantly for nanofluids, while it decreased with increasing subcooling levels. Condensation effects at the bubble interface were reflected in the form of redistribution of colors around it. Schlieren images clearly revealed a spread in the spatial extent of the thermal boundary layer region caused by the suspended nanoparticles around the vapor bubble as well as near the heated substrate. This phenomenon has been considered as one of the factors that tends to alter the condensation effects and, in turn, affects the bubble dynamics. Quantitative analysis of schlieren images revealed that the natural convective heat flux increases with increasing subcooling levels, while it decreases with increasing nanoparticle concentration. Deterioration in the natural convection phenomenon in the presence of suspended nanoparticles has been attributed to the reduced strength of thermal gradients adjacent to the heater substrate. On the other hand, evaporative heat flux was observed to decrease with increasing subcooling levels and increase with increasing concentration of nanofluids.

Dhairya Bhatt

Papers

Experiments on the effects of nanoparticles on subcooled nucleate pool boiling

Simultaneous mapping of single bubble dynamics and heat transfer rates for SiO2/water nanofluids under nucleate pool boiling regime