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By their very nature, compact heat exchangers allow an efficient use of material, volume, and energy in thermal systems. These benefits have driven heat exchanger design toward higher compactness, and the trend toward ultra-compact designs will continue. Highly compact surfaces can be manufactured using micro-machining and other modern technologies. In this paper, unresolved thermal-hydraulic issues related to ultra-compact designs are discussed, and the status of the technologies required for the production of ultra-compact structured surfaces is summarized. This review article includes 67 references.

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A technique for fabricating micropatterned aluminum surfaces with parallel grooves 30 µm wide and tens of microns in depth is described. Standard photolithographic techniques are used to obtain this precise surface-feature patterning. Positive photoresists, S1813 and AZ4620, are selected to mask the surface, and a mixture of BCl 3 and Cl 2 gases is used to perform the etching. Experimental data show that a droplet placed on the micro-grooved aluminum surface using a micro-syringe exhibits an increased apparent contact angle, and for droplets condensed on these etched surfaces, more than a 50% reduction in the volume needed for the onset of droplet sliding is manifest. No chemical surface treatment is necessary to achieve this water repellency; it is accomplished solely by an anisotropic surface morphology that manipulates droplet geometry and creates and exploits discontinuities in the three-phase contact line. These micro-structured surfaces are proposed for use in a broad range of air-cooling applications, where the management of condensate and defrost liquid on the heat transfer surface is essential to the energy-efficient operation of the machine.(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)