Numerical Study of Conjugate Heat Transfer Due to Growth of a Vapor Bubble During Flow Boiling of Water in a Microchannel

Author(s):  
A. Mukherjee

The present study is performed to numerically investigate temperature distribution at the channel walls during growth of a vapor bubble inside a microchannel. The microchannel is of 200 μm square cross section and a vapor bubble nucleates at one of the walls, with liquid flowing in through the channel inlet. Constant heat flux boundary condition is specified at the bottom wall of the microchannel. The complete Navier-Stokes equations along with continuity and energy equations are solved using the SIMPLER method. The liquid vapor interface is captured using the level set technique. The conjugate heat transfer problem is solved at the bottom and side walls. The bubble grows rapidly due to heat transfer from the walls and soon turns into a plug filling the entire channel cross section. The temperature distribution at the channel walls is studied for different values of wall heat flux. The bubble growth rate is found to increase with increase in wall heat flux. High temperatures are noted at the wall below the bubble base due to vapor contact causing axial temperature gradients. Areas of high heat transfer are also seen to exist in the thin layer of liquid between bubble and the channel sidewalls.

Author(s):  
Abhijit Mukherjee ◽  
Satish G. Kandlikar

The present study is performed to analyze the wall heat transfer mechanisms during growth of a vapor bubble inside a microchannel. The microchannel is of 200 μm square cross section and a vapor bubble begins to grow at one of the walls, with liquid coming in through the channel inlet. The complete Navier-Stokes equations along with continuity and energy equations are solved using the SIMPLER method. The liquid vapor interface is captured using the level set technique. The bubble grows rapidly due to heat transfer from the walls and soon turns into a plug filling the entire channel cross section. The average wall heat transfer at the channel walls is studied for different values of wall superheat and incoming liquid mass flux. The results show that the wall heat transfer increases with wall superheat but is almost unaffected by the liquid flow rate. The bubble growth is found to be the primary mechanism of increasing wall heat transfer as it pushes the liquid against the walls thereby influencing the thermal boundary layer development.


Author(s):  
Aleksander Vadnjal ◽  
Ivan Catton

An increasing demand for a higher heat flux removal capability within a smaller volume for high power electronics led us to focus on micro channels in contrast to the classical heat fin design. A micro channel can have various shapes to enhance heat transfer, but the shape that will lead to a higher heat flux removal with a moderate pumping power needs to be determined. The standard micro-channel terminology is usually used for channels with a simple cross section, e.g. square, round, triangle, etc., but here the micro channel cross section is going to be expanded to describe more complicated and interconnected micro scale channel cross sections. The micro channel geometries explored are pin fins (in-line and staggered), parallel plates and sintered porous micro channels (see Fig.1). The problem solved here is a conjugate problem involving two heat transfer mechanisms; 1) porous media effective conductivity and 2) internal convective heat transfer coefficient. Volume averaging theory (VAT) is used to rigorously cast the point wise conservation of energy, momentum and mass equations into a form that represents the thermal and hydraulic properties of the micro channel (porous media) morphology. Using the resulting VAT based field equations, optimization of a micro channel heated from one side is used to determine the optimum micro channel morphology. A small square of 1 cm 2 is chosen as an example and the thermal resistance, 0C/W, and pressure drop are shown as a function of Reynolds number.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 733-743 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Ramadan ◽  
I. Tlili

ABSTRACTHeat convection of a microchannel gas flow with constant wall heat flux boundary condition is investigated numerically, considering viscous dissipation and axial conduction. The shear work due to the slipping fluid at the wall is incorporated in the analysis. An analytical solution for fully developed conditions is also derived. The effect of the shear work on heat transfer is quantified through a comparative analysis in both the entrance- and the fully developed- regions. The analysis shows that the shear work effect on heat transfer is considerable, and neglecting this term leads to an overestimation of the Nusselt number in gas heating and an underestimation in gas cooling. The over/under estimation of the Nusselt number is dependent on both the Knudsen number and the Brinkman number. The results presented also demonstrate the significance of the shear work in the developing flow region. It is shown that in the developing flow region the Nusselt number is less sensitive to viscous dissipation when the shear work is neglected. It can be concluded from this study that the shear work effect is significant and neglecting it can lead to considerable errors in microchannel flow heat transfer.


Author(s):  
Nishant Tiwari ◽  
Manoj Kumar Moharana ◽  
Sunil Kumar Sarangi

A three-dimensional numerical study has been carried out to understand the effect of axial wall conduction in a conjugate heat transfer situation in a wavy wall square cross section microchannel engraved on solid substrate whose thickness varying between 1.2–3.6 mm. The bottom of the substrate (1.8 × 30 mm2) is subjected to constant wall heat flux while remaining faces exposed to ambient are assumed to be adiabatic. The vertical parallel walls are considered wavy such that the channel cross section at any axial location will be a square (0.6 × 0.6 mm2) and length of the channel is 30 mm. Wavelength (λ) and amplitude (A) of the wavy channel wall are 12 mm and 0.2 mm respectively. Simulations has been carried out for substrate thickness to channel depth ratio (δsf ∼ 1–5), substrate wall to fluid thermal conductivity ratio (ksf ∼ 0.34–646) and flow rate (Re ∼ 100 to 500). The results show that with increase in flow rate (Re), the hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layers are thinned due to wavy passage and they shifted from the centerline towards the peak which improves the local heat transfer coefficient at the solid-fluid interface. It is also found that after attaining maximum Nuavg at optimum ksf, the slope goes downward with increasing ksf for all set of δsf and flow rate (Re) considered in this study.


2010 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Hetsroni

Boiling in micro-channelsBoiling heat transfer in micro-channels is a subject of intense academic and practical interest. Though many heat transfer correlations have been proposed, most were empirically formulated from experimental data. However, hydrodynamic and thermal aspects of boiling in micro-channels are not well understood. Moreover, there are only a few theoretical models that link the heat transfer mechanism with flow regimes in micro-channels. Also, there are discrepancies between different sets of published results, and heat transfer coefficients have either well exceeded, or fallen far below, those predicted for conventional channels. Here we consider these problems with regard to micro-channels with hydraulic diameters ranging roughly from 5 μm to 500 μm, to gain a better understanding of the distinct properties of the measurement techniques and uncertainties, the conditions under which the experimental results should be compared to analytical or numerical predictions, boiling phenomenon, as well as different types of micro-channel heat sinks. Two-phase flow maps and heat transfer prediction methods for vaporization in macro-channels are not applicable in micro-channels, because surface tension dominates the phenomena, rather than gravity forces. The models of convection boiling should correlate the frequencies, sizes and velocities of the bubbles and the coalescence processes, which control the flow pattern transitions, together with the heat flux and the mass flux. Therefore, the vapour bubble size distribution must be taken into account. The flow pattern in parallel micro-channels is quite different from that in a single micro-channel. At same values of heat and mass flux, different, time dependent, flow regimes occur in a given micro-channel. At low vapour quality, heat flux causes a sudden release of energy into the vapour bubble, which grows rapidly and occupies the entire channel cross section. The rapid bubble growth pushes the liquid-vapour interface on both caps of the vapour bubble, at the upstream and the downstream ends, and leads to a reverse flow. We term this phenomenon as explosive boiling. One of the limiting operating conditions with flow boiling is the critical heat flux (CHF). The CHF phenomenon is different from that observed in conventional size channels.


Author(s):  
Saeid Vafaei ◽  
Dongsheng Wen

This work investigates the subcooled flow boiling of aqueous based nanofluids in a 510 μm single microchannel with a focus on the effect of nanoparticles on the critical heat flux (CHF). The surface temperature distribution along the pipe, the inlet and outlet pressures and temperatures are measured simultaneously for different concentrations of alumina nanofluids and dionized water. The experiment shows a remarkable increase ∼ 31% in the CHF under very low nanoparticle concentrations (∼0.1v%) and a nonlinear influence of nanoparticles on the subcooled boiling heat transfer.


Author(s):  
K. H. Bang ◽  
W. H. Choo

The past work on flow boiling heat transfer in minichannels ranging one to three millimeters of hydraulic diameter has indicated that the local heat transfer coefficients are largely independent of mass flux and vapor quality, but mainly a function of wall heat flux. The present work is a revisit of flow boiling in minichannels by conducting experiment using 1.67 mm inner diameter tubes of three different materials; aluminum, brass, and copper, to investigate an effect of the tube inner surface conditions with the focus on an effect on nucleate boiling. Tests were conducted for R-22, a fixed mass flux of 600 kg/m2s, 5∼30 kW/m2 of wall heat flux, 0.0∼0.9 of local vapor quality. The present experimental data confirmed that the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient in a minichannel varies only by heat flux, independent of mass flux and vapor quality. The effect of tube material was found small for the tubes used in the present work. The present data were well predicted by the correlation proposed by Tran et al. (1996).


2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Hetsroni ◽  
A. Mosyak ◽  
Z. Segal

Abstract We fabricated a novel thermal microsystems (simulating a computer chip) consisting of a heater, microchannels, inlet and outlet plena and we studied the effect of the geometry on the flow and heat transfer. The vapor - water two-phase flow patterns were observed in the parallel microchannels through a microscope and high-speed video camera. It was observed that hydraulic instabilities occur. Existence of a periodic annular flow was also observed, which consist of a symmetrically distributed liquid ring surrounding the vapor core. Along the microchannel axis, the periodic dry zone appears and develops. The thermal visualization and temperature measurements of the heated device were carried out using infrared thermography. As long as the flow was single phase liquid, the forced convection heat transfer resulted in a moderate irregularity on the heated chip. These temperature differences do not cause damage to the device. The steady-state heat transfer for different types of microchannels has been studied also at the range of heat flux where phase change of the working fluid from liquid to vapor took place. Under conditions of flow boiling in microchannels, a significant enhancement of heat transfer was established. In the case of uniform heat flux the hydraulic instabilities lead to irregularity of temperature distribution on the heated chip. In the case of nonuniform heat flux the irregularity increased drastically.


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