Critical Heat Flux Enhancement on Cylindrical Tubes With Circumferential Micro-Channels During Saturated Pool Boiling of Water

Abstract

This work presents the experimental characterization of pool boiling heat transfer enhancement on cylindrical tubes with circumferential micro-channels using saturated water at atmospheric pressure as the working fluid. Three engineered copper tubes with 300 μm, 600 μm and 900 μm fin width and a fixed 400 μm channel width with 410 μm channel depth were machined using CNC. To compare the boiling enhancement on engineered tubes, one plain copper tube was used as the reference heater. The active heating area on the cylindrical tubes had a dimension of 9.5 mm outer diameter and 10.5 mm length. A custom-built cylindrical heater was designed using a nichrome wire coil of 30 AWG with a resistance of 19.57 Ω/inch of coil to provide joule heating to the cylindrical tubes. The electrical wire was insulated from the copper heater using a thin layer of alumina paste. The saturated pool boiling tests up to critical heat flux (CHF) were conducted at atmospheric pressure. While an approximate CHF of ∼70 W/cm2 was achieved for the plain copper tube, the cylindrical tube with microchannel geometry showed a CHF range of 131–144 W/cm2 that corresponds to 87%–100% enhancement as compared to plain cylindrical tube.