Comprehensive study of synergistic effects of phase separation structures and electric fields for enhancing the heat transfer performance of minichannel heat sinks

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of the phase separation structure on the enhanced boiling heat transfer mechanism and bubble dynamics were investigated. Two types of phase-separation structures and one type of conventional minichannel were manufactured by ultrafast laser technology. Flow boiling experiments of a glycerol-water solution were conducted under various heat flux and electric field conditions. Entropy generation analysis was employed to comprehensively analyze and assess energy losses and irreversibility within the system. Response surface analysis method was introduced to optimize operational and design parameters for achieving optimal experimental design. Moreover, the coupling effect of the phase-separation structure and electric field was observed to have a significant impact on the enhancement of heat transfer. The visualization results indicate that, compared to conventional parallel minichannels, the countercurrent minichannel with phase-separation structure leads to a gradual decrease in the aspect ratio of confined bubbles downstream (in contrast to the increasing aspect ratio of confined bubbles downstream in general minichannels), and smaller bubbles at the upstream of adjacent minichannels gradually disappear and diminish due to the condensation effect. The experimental results demonstrate that the porous phase-separation structure plays a significant role in enhancing heat transfer performance and can reduce the increase of two-phase friction pressure drop per unit length with the increase of heat flux. Under electric field-free conditions, the porous phase separation structure exhibits a maximum increase in heat transfer efficiency of 26.2% compared to conventional structures. Furthermore, the maximum reduction in two-phase frictional pressure drop per unit length reaches 19.4%. In the presence of the synergistic effect between an electric field and the phase separation structure, the maximum heat transfer efficiency is enhanced by 65.5%. The above analysis provides an effective means for investigating the comprehensive performance of phase separation structures and the bubble dynamics of confined bubbles in heat sinks.