Orientation effects on flow boiling silicon nanowire microchannels

Abstract

Flow boiling in Silicon Nanowire microchannel enhances heat transfer performance, CHF and reduces pressure drop compared to Plainwall microchannel. It is revealed by earlier studies that promoted nucleate boiling, liquid rewetting and enhanced thin film evaporation are the primary reasons behind these significant performance enchantments. Although flow regime plays a significant role to characterize the flow boiling Silicon Nanowire microchannel performances; surface characteristics, hydrodynamic phenomena, bubble contact angle and surface orientation are also some of the major influencing parameters in system performances. More importantly, effect of orientation (effect of gravity) draws a great attention in establishing the viability of flow boiling in microchannels in space applications. In this study, the effects of heating surface orientation in flow boiling Silicon Nanowire microchannels have been investigated to reveal the underlying heat transfer phenomena and also to discover the applicability of this system in space applications. Comparison between Nanowire and Plainwall microchannels have been performed by experimental and visual studies. Experiments were conducted in a forced convection loop with deionized water at mass flux range of 100kg/m2s-600kg/m2s. Micro devices consist of five parallel straight microchannels with Nanowire and without Nanowire (Plainwall) (200μm X 250μm X 10mm) were used to investigate the effects of orientation. Two different orientations were used to perform the test: upward facing (0° Orientation) and downward facing (180° Orientation). Results for Plainwall show sensitivity to orientation and mass flux, whereas, little effects of mass flux and orientation have been observed for Nanowire configuration.