Simulation of Single Bubble Evaporation in a Microchannel in Zero Gravity With Thermocapillary Effect

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Yang Luo ◽  
Jingzhi Zhang ◽  
W. J. Minkowycz

This paper presents fundamental research on the hydrodynamics and heat transfer surrounding a single elongated bubble during flow boiling in a circular microchannel. A continuum surface force (CSF) model based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method is combined with the thermocapillary force to explore the effects of thermocapillarity for flow boiling in microchannels. To validate the self-defined codes, a two-phase thermocapillary-driven flow and a Taylor bubble growing in a capillary tube are studied. Results of both test cases show good convergence and agreement with data from the earlier literature. The bubble motion and the local heat transfer coefficient (HTC) on the heated wall with respect to time are discussed. It is found that for large Marangoni number (case 3), variation of surface tension has affected the bubble shape and temperature profile. The thermocapillary effect induces convection in a thin liquid film region, which augments the HTCs at specified positions. The numerical investigation also shows that the average HTC increased by 6.7% in case 3 when compared with case 1. Thus, it is very important to study further the effects of themocapillarity and the Marangoni effect on bubble growth in microchannels.

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenhai Pan ◽  
Justin A. Weibel ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

Despite the demand for high-performance, two-phase cooling systems, high-fidelity simulations of flow boiling in complex microchannel geometries remains a challenging numerical problem. We conduct a first-principles-based simulation of an evaporating two-phase flow in a high-aspect-ratio microchannel with bends using a volume of fluid-based numerical model. For the case shown, the lower horizontal section of the microchannel has a constant flux of 20 W/cm2 applied to the wetted wall area (heat flux at the base of 133 W/cm2); HFE-7100 vapor and liquid enter the channel at 2 m/s. The three-dimensional channel geometry requires a refined near-wall numerical mesh to resolve thin liquid film flow features. The recently developed saturated-interface-volume phase change model (Int J Heat Mass Trans 93:945-956, 2016) is implemented for prediction of mass and energy exchange across the liquid-vapor interface at a low computational cost (~80 hr; 6-core parallelization on Intel Xeon E3-1245V3). The model reveals transport details including the interface shape and fluid velocity and temperature fields. The interfacial temperature remains fixed at saturation with smooth velocity contours near the interface. The highest evaporation flux is located in the thin liquid film region near the heated wall.


1999 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Zu¨rcher ◽  
J. R. Thome ◽  
D. Favrat

Experimental test results for flow boiling of pure ammonia inside horizontal tubes were obtained for a plain stainless steel tube. Tests were run at a nominal saturation temperature of 4°C, nine mass velocities from 20–140 kg/m2 s, vapor qualities from 1–99 percent and heat fluxes from 5–58 kW/m2. Two-phase flow observations showed that the current test data covered the following regimes: fully stratified, stratified-wavy, intermittent, annular, and annular with partial dryout. The Kattan-Thome-Favrat flow boiling model accurately predicted the local heat transfer coefficients measured in all these flow regimes with only two small modifications to their flow map (to extend its application to G < 100 kg/m2 s). Their flow boiling model was also successfully compared to the earlier ammonia flow boiling data of Chaddock and Buzzard (1986). The Gungor-Winterton (1987) correlation instead gave very poor accuracy for ammonia.


Author(s):  
Kyoungwoo Park ◽  
Kwan-Soo Lee

A mathematical model is presented to predict the two-phase transport phenomena of the evaporating extended meniscus region in a micro capillary tube which approximates the evaporator of the CPL system. The behavior of a liquid-vapor interface can be estimated by using the augmented Laplace-Young equation. The governing equations for transport fields of liquid and vapor phases can be obtained by adopting the different physical approaches for the meniscus and thin film regions. In this model, the variation of vapor pressure and the disjoining pressure effect are included and the friction force at the liquid-vapor interface is also considered. The results show that the local heat transfer coefficient has an extremely large value in the thin film region. However, the amount of heat transfer rate, of the meniscus region is larger than that of the thin film region. It is also found that the length of the extended meniscus region is affected by the heat flux, the tube radius and the dispersion constant.


Author(s):  
Zhenhai Pan ◽  
Justin A. Weibel ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

High-fidelity simulation of flow boiling in microchannels remains a challenging problem, but the increasing interest in applications of microscale two-phase transport highlight its importance. In this paper, a volume of fluid (VOF)-based flow boiling model is proposed with computational expense-saving features that enable cost-effective simulation of two-phase flow and heat transfer in realistic geometries. The vapor and liquid phases are distinguished using a color function which represents the local volume fraction of the tracked phase. Mass conservation is satisfied by solving the transport equations for both phases with a finite-volume approach. In order to predict phase change at the liquid-vapor interface, evaporative heat and mass source terms are calculated using a novel, saturated-interface-volume phase change model that fixes the interface at the saturation temperature at each time step to achieve stability. Numerical oscillation of the evaporation source terms is thus eliminated and a non-iterative time advancement scheme can be adopted to reduce computational cost. The reference frame is set to move with the vapor slug to artificially increase the local velocity magnitude in the thin liquid film region in the relative frame, which reduces the influence of numerical errors resulting from calculation of the surface tension force, and thus suppresses the development of spurious currents. This allows use of non-uniform meshes that can efficiently resolve high-aspect-ratio geometries and flow features and significantly reduces the overall numerical expense. The proposed model is used to simulate the growth of a vapor bubble in a heated 2D axisymmetric microchannel. The bubble motion, bubble growth rate, liquid film thickness, and local heat transfer coefficient along the wall are compared against previous numerical studies.


Author(s):  
M. H. Kim ◽  
J. S. Shin ◽  
C. Huh ◽  
T. J. Kim ◽  
K. W. Seo

This paper reviews recent Korean studies of flow characteristics, flow boiling, and flow condensation in micro- and mini-channels. The characteristics of local heat transfer and pressure drops were experimentally investigated using condensing R134a two-phase flow, in a single round tube, with an inner diameter of 0.691 mm. New experimental techniques were developed to measure the condensation heat transfer coefficient. Tests were performed for a mass flux of 100 to 600 kg/m2s, a heat flux of 5 to 20 kW/m2, and a saturation temperature of 40°C. The experimental local condensation heat transfer coefficients and two-phase frictional pressure gradients are shown. Comparisons of experimental data with existing models reveal that the correlations failed to predict the present data. This study contains the unique sub-millimeter-diameter, single round tube, condensation data reported in the literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2116 (1) ◽  
pp. 012110
Author(s):  
L Cattani ◽  
F Bozzoli ◽  
V Ayel ◽  
C Romestant ◽  
Y Bertin

Abstract The aim of this work is to estimate the local heat flux and heat transfer coefficient for the case of evaporation of thin liquid film deposited on capillary heated channel: it plays a fundamental role in the two-phase heat transfer processes inside mini-channels. In the present analysis it is investigated a semi-infinite slug flow (one liquid slug followed by one single vapour bubble) in a heated capillary copper tube. The estimation procedure here adopted is based on the solution of the inverse heat conduction problem within the wall domain adopting, as input data, the temperature field on the external tube wall acquired by means of infrared thermography.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. W. Eckels ◽  
J. H. Parker ◽  
A. Patterson

Experimental analyses of the effects of secondary flows on heat transfer in high tip speed rotating apparatus are not readily available. This paper provides data on the heat transfer within two different test modules which were rotated at high speed with the heat transfer surfaces perpendicular and parallel to the Coriolis acceleration. One module contained a heated wall and another a parallel plate free convection experiment. Uniform heat fluxes were maintained. Rayleigh numbers in excess of 1015 were achieved with liquid helium as the transfer medium. Some of the findings are that secondary flows can reduce heat transfer by as much as 60 percent in single-phase heat transfer, the transitions to fully turbulent flow are in agreement with existing prediction methods, the critical heat flux in two-phase flow boiling is significantly increased, forced convection correlations underpredict single-phase thermosyphon performance, and the usual nondimensional parameters of free convection establish similitude between various fluids and speeds. These results suggest that techniques used to enhance heat transfer in the rotating frame should be verified by tests in the rotating frame.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Yuhao Lin ◽  
Yang Luo

Abstract The application of two-phase flow in microchannel needs further research to achieve a more stable and highly-performed heat sink. Utilizing self-rewetting fluid is one of the promising ways to minimize the dryout area, thus increasing the heat transfer coefficient and critical heat flux (CHF). To investigate the heat transfer performance of self-rewetting fluid in microchannel flow boiling, a numerical investigation is carried out in this study utilizing the VOF method, phase-change model and continuum surface force (CSF) model with surface tension versus temperature. Athree-dimensional numerical investigation of bubble growth and merger is carried out with water and 0.2%wt heptanol solution. The single bubble growing cases, two x-direction/y-direction bubbles merging cases and three bubbles merging cases are conducted. Since the bubbles never detach the heated walls, the dryout area and regions nearby the contact line with thin liquid film dominated the heat transfer process during the bubbles' growth and merger. The self-rewetting fluid is able to minimize the local dryout area and achieve the larger thin liquid film area around the contact line due to the Marangoni effect and thermocapillary force, thus result in higher wall heat flux when compared to water. The two x-direction bubbles merging case performed best for heat transfer in the microchannel, in which self-rewetting fluid achieves heat transfer enhancement for over 50 percent compared with water.


Author(s):  
Arif B. Ozer ◽  
Donald K. Hollingsworth ◽  
Larry. C. Witte

A quenching/diffusion analytical model has been developed for predicting the wall temperature and wall heat flux behind bubbles sliding in a confined narrow channel. The model is based on the concept of a well-mixed liquid region that enhances the heat transfer near the heated wall behind the bubble. Heat transfer in the liquid is treated as a one-dimensional transient conduction process until the flow field recovers back to its undisturbed level prior to bubble passage. The model is compared to experimental heat transfer results obtained in a high-aspect-ratio (1.2×23mm) rectangular, horizontal channel with one wide wall forming a uniform-heat-generation boundary and the other designed for optical access to the flow field. The working fluid was Novec™ 649. A thermochromic liquid crystal coating was applied to the outside of the uniform-heat-generation boundary, so that wall temperature variations could be obtained and heat transfer coefficients and Nusselt numbers could be obtained. The experiments were focused on high inlet subcooling, typically 15–50°C. The model is able to capture the elevated heat transfer rates measured in the channel without the need to consider nucleate boiling from the surface or microlayer evaporation from the sliding bubbles. Surface temperatures and wall heat fluxes were estimated for 17 different experimental conditions using the proposed model. Results agreed with the measured values within ±15% accuracy. The insight gathered from comparing the results of the proposed model to experimental results provides the basis for a better understanding of the physics of subcooled bubbly flow in narrow channels.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document