Correlation of Subatmospheric Pressure, Saturated, Pool Boiling of Water on a Structured-Porous Surface

Abstract

Saturated pool-boiling experiments at 1 atm and subatmospheric pressure assess the utility of fine-filament screen-laminate enhanced surfaces as effective bubble nucleation sites. Experiments were conducted on vertically oriented, multilayer laminates in saturated distilled water at pressures of 0.2–1.0 atm. The performance of 12 different copper-filament surfaces, having pore hydraulic diameters ranging from 14 μm to 172 μm, is documented. Experimental results show that boiling performance is a strong function of screen-laminate geometry. In the present work, enhancement of up to 27 times that of an unenhanced surface was obtained at a superheat of 8 K and a pressure of 0.2 atm. Dimensional analysis and multiparameter regression are used to develop a heat transfer correlation that relates the boiling heat transfer coefficient to the lamination geometry.