A method to partition boiling heat transfer mechanisms using synchronous through-substrate high-speed visual and infrared measurements

Abstract

Heat transfer during boiling involves a variety of transport mechanisms. Available experimental techniques cannot yet fully delineate these mechanisms which has contributed to a long-standing, persistent challenge of constructing accurate mechanistic models for boiling. In this work, we develop a method to identify and distinguish between the individual heat transfer mechanisms that occur during boiling using synchronous, through-substrate, high-speed visual and infrared measurements. Local heat fluxes are deduced from temperature measurements and a synchronized set of binarized phase maps are obtained from processing high-speed visual measurements. Experimental pool boiling investigation of HFE-7100 fluid on an indium tin oxide surface revealed four distinct heat transfer signatures in the heat flux maps corresponding to liquid convection, contact line evaporation, vapor convection, and local microconvection due to rewetting during boiling. To classify these regions, pixel-wise binary and morphological operations are performed on the phase maps of the entire surface. In contrast with prior partitioning techniques which use standalone heat flux measurements, our synchronous high-resolution visualization enables the region classification around fine bubble footprints that otherwise would not be detected with heat flux maps alone. The heat fluxes and superheats are then partitioned into their underlying mechanisms using classified regions from the phase maps. Analysis of the nucleate boiling regime data shows that different mechanisms contribute in varying degrees to the overall heat transfer at different points along the boiling curve: for the surface-fluid combination studied, single-phase liquid heat transfer is the primary contributor at low heat fluxes while at high heat fluxes, contact line evaporation contributed the most. We further employ the experimental approach to partitioning dynamic processes resulting from step increases in heat input demonstrating its potential for investigating transient phenomena such as dryout. The experimental and post-processing method introduced in this study is the first to delineate partitioning between different heat transfer mechanism regions in the presence of multiple interacting bubbles over the entire surface throughout the boiling curve in both steady and transient operating conditions.