Heat Transfer Between Liquid Film Formed on the Inclined Dimpled Surface and Ambient Air

Heat transfer enhancement area attracts the close attention of the researchers and engineers worldwide for the last decades. The most popular techniques nowadays to enhance heat transfer from the surface is to extend it with the fins, studs, etc. or to profile it with the elements of artificial roughness, winglets, dimples, etc. Those types of surface enhancement allow improving the thermal efficiency of the heat transfer equipment with minimal design modification and without significant capital expenses. One of the interesting and promising techniques of the surface profiling is the formation on the surface the arrangement of spherical dimples, which generate intensive vortex structure near the surface, increase flow turbulence and, as a result, enhance heat and mass transfer between a profiled surface and a liquid (or gas) flowing over it [1–3]. In this connection, it is interesting to establish whether surface profiling will also enhance the heat transfer intensity between a liquid film on such a surface and ambient air. Unfortunately, authors were not able to find any publications on this subject in the open domain. At the same time, the investigation of this process could be of great interest for the engineering practice, in particular, for the cooling towers advancement. In the present work, the authors discuss some experimental results obtained for the different profile parameters and flow regimes.