Application of Inverse Heat Conduction Method and Method of Lines in Spray Cooling of Heated Surface

Abstract

This paper investigates application of Method of Lines (MOL) and Inverse Heat Conduction techniques in spray cooling process. A flat face of a heated cylinder is cooled by using a nozzle spray and using room temperature water as a cooling fluid. The numerical analysis is done using MOL to estimate exposed surface temperature, surface heat flux, and convection heat transfer coefficient [3],[4]. Since there is no exact solution to verify the approximation result, for the verification purpose and accuracy of the result, the numerical result from this study is compared to other approximation results with experimental research done by Chen-Lee and Qiao-Chandra [1]. The results illustrate that disparity between the outcome of MOL and the one generated by Chen and Lee’s raw data is very insignificant throughout the whole time domain. This discrepancy between these two estimated results proves that MOL is a very reliable approximation technique compared to other finite element methods which require a finer mesh size and significant amount of calculations[2],[5]. However, comparing the results obtained through MOL with Qiao and Chandra shows that the difference between the estimated heat transfer coefficient and estimated heat flux converges rapidly for the short times of 0 < t < 60, but as the time passes, the MOL approximation results diverge slowly until it reaches its maximum value at ninety seconds, and the variance remains almost constant for the rest of the time period.