Effects of Varying Geometrical Parameters on Boiling From Microfabricated Enhanced Structures

Abstract

The current study involves two-phase cooling from enhanced structures whose dimensions have been changed systematically using microfabrication techniques. The aim is to optimize the dimensions to maximize the heat transfer. The enhanced structure used in this study consists of a stacked network of interconnecting channels making it highly porous. The effect of varying the pore size, pitch and height on the boiling performance was studied, with fluorocarbon FC-72 as the working fluid. While most of the previous studies on the mechanism of enhanced nucleate boiling have focused on a small range of wall superheats (0–4 K), the present study covers a wider range (as high as 30 K). A larger pore and smaller pitch resulted in higher heat dissipation at all heat fluxes. The effect of stacking multiple layers showed a proportional increase in heat dissipation (with additional layers) in a certain range of wall superheat values only. In the wall superheat range 8–13 K, no appreciable difference was observed between a single layer structure and a three layer structure. A fin effect combined with change in the boiling phenomenon within the sub-surface layers is proposed to explain this effect.