Boiling is a key heat transfer process for a variety of power generation and thermal management technologies. We show that nanopillar arrays fabricated on a substrate enhance both the critical heat flux (CHF) and the critical temperature at CHF of the substrate and thus, effectively increase the limit of boiling before the boiling crisis is triggered. We reveal that the enhancement in both the CHF and the critical temperature results from an intensified rewetting process which increases with the height of nanopillars. We develop a predictive model based on experimental measurements of rewetting velocity to predict the enhancement in CHF and critical temperature of the nanopillar substrates. This model is critical for understanding how to control boiling enhancement and designing various nanostructured surfaces into specific applications.
We report instability of a superheated granular layer when a droplet is deposited on top of the layer. We find that the instability caused by evaporating vapor may trap or cause the droplet to sail away from the deposited position. The sailing motion is triggered by an unstable pressure distribution originated from fast fluidization of metallic grains. We provide a predictive model and experimental verification of the enabling conditions for sailing motion based on limiting criteria for fast fluidization.
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