A numerical study on bubble dynamics and heat transfer of flow boiling in an inclined microchannel

Abstract

Flow boiling, as an important heat transfer method, is widely applied in many devices. In this study, a gas-liquid thermal lattice Boltzmann model is adopted to study the flow boiling in an inclined microchannel. Specifically, the bubble growth processes and heat transfer efficiency are studied for different inclined angles. The numerical results show that the liquids occur phase change almost at the same time while the inclined angles are different. As the inclined angle increases, the bubble departure time decreases. Also, the heater temperatures change periodically for the studied cases. The maximum heater temperature is not affected by the inclined angle while the minimum heater temperature decreases when the inclined angle of the microchannel increases. Therefore, the larger inclined angle increases the flow boiling heat transfer efficiency.