Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Thermal Interaction Between Two Droplets in Spray Cooling of Heated Surfaces

Dropwise cooling is a subject of interest for numerous industrial applications, which fosters fundamental research on the related mechanisms. The present work is focused on studying the cooling effect of 2 water droplets gently released onto a heated solid surface. The nominal initial temperature of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHeat transfer engineering Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 217 - 228
Main Authors Santangelo, Paolo E., Corticelli, Mauro A., Tartarini, Paolo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Taylor & Francis 07.02.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Blackbody
Cooling
Cooling effects
Droplets
Heat
Industrial applications
Mathematical models
Numerical analysis
Spray cooling
Substrates
Temperature profiles
Thermography
Water drops
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Summary:Dropwise cooling is a subject of interest for numerous industrial applications, which fosters fundamental research on the related mechanisms. The present work is focused on studying the cooling effect of 2 water droplets gently released onto a heated solid surface. The nominal initial temperature of the substrate was lower than 100 °C, thereby referring to evaporation regime. Heat-transfer phenomena were analyzed by an experimental and numerical approach at the solid/liquid interface and over non-wetted regions, thus evaluating mutual interaction between droplets. Infrared thermography was employed in a facility built to measure surface temperature from below through a fully non-intrusive approach. An infrared-transparent disk served as the substrate; its black-painted upper surface allowed heating and droplet deposition to occur on a blackbody. A numerical code was developed to model heat transfer within all bodies and at all interfaces by the finite-volume discretization method. Numerical results showed very good agreement with experimental temperature profiles and heat-flux distribution was predicted over the whole sampling region. Cooling effect was determined quantitatively together with the extent of the mutual-interaction region, where the influence of 2 sequentially-released droplets was proved higher and longer than that of a single-droplet configuration with the same amount of deposited water.
ISSN:0145-7632
1521-0537
DOI:10.1080/01457632.2017.1295737