Experimental and Analytical Study on the Influence of Saturation Pressure and Surface Roughness on Pool Boiling CHF of HFE-7100

Abstract

Critical heat flux (CHF) determines the safety and application of pool boiling heat transfer in many industrial fields. The influence of saturation pressure and surface roughness on saturated pool boiling CHF in hydrofluoroether HFE-7100 was experimentally studied in this investigation. Visualization and heat transfer measurements were conducted at the critical and transition boiling state, and further, the accuracy of CHF prediction models and enhancement mechanism had been analyzed. The polished boiling surfaces had various surface roughness values ranging from 0.019 to 0.587 μm and their contact angles varied from 7° to 10°, while the experimental saturation pressure changed from 0.7 to 2.0 bar. The visual images showed that the pool boiling phenomenon at a critical state was composed of different-sized bubbles, vapor column, and large mushroom vapor, whereas the unsteady blanket of vapor continually injected bubbles at a transition state. The saturation pressure and surface roughness had an obvious improvement on pool boiling CHF, which might be ascribed to the effects of bubble momentum owing to evaporation, distribution and recovery period of a heat transfer boundary layer, capillary action of the working liquid, as well as ratio of vapor jets’ area. Compared with the well-known correlations reported in the literature, CHF correlation of Bailey et al. (2006) predicted the current results more accurately. To further improve the prediction accuracy, a new empirical correlation for CHF dimensionless K considering the effects of saturation pressure and surface roughness was developed, and the predicted values were in better agreement with the experimental data.