Film Boiling Incipience at the Departure From Natural Convection on Flat, Smooth Surfaces

The present research is an experimental study of pool boiling nucleation behavior using flat, smooth surfaces immersed in saturated highly wetting liquids, FC-72 and FC-87. A flush-mounted, copper surface of 10 mm × 10 mm is used as a heat transfer surface, simulating a microelectronic chip surface. At the nucleation incipient points of higher wall superheats with steady increase of heat flux, vapor film blankets the smooth surface and remains on the surface. To predict this film boiling incipience phenomenon from the smooth surface, an incipience map is developed over the boiling curve. When the incipient heat flux is higher than the minimum heat flux (MHF) and the incipient wall superheat value is higher than the transition boiling curve value at the incipient heat flux, the transition from single-phase natural convection to film boiling is observed at the incipient point. To prevent film boiling incipience, a microporous coating is applied over the smooth surface, which decreases incipient wall superheat and increases minimum heat flux. The film boiling incipience should be avoided to take advantage of highly efficient nucleate boiling heat transfer for the cooling of high-heat-flux applications.