Critical heat flux in locally heated liquid film moving under the action of gas flow in a mini-channel

Abstract

Thin and ultra thin liquid films driven by a forced gas/vapor flow (stratified or annular flows), i.e. shear-driven liquid films in a narrow channel, is one of the promising candidate for the thermal management of advanced semiconductor devices with high local heat release. In experiments performed in this paper with locally heated shear-driven liquid films of water the effect of various conditions, such as flow rates of liquid and gas and channel height, on critical heat flux (CHF) was investigated. In experiments the record value of CHF as high as 540 W/cm2 has been achieved. The heat spreading into the substrate and the heat loses into the atmosphere in total don't exceed 30% at heat fluxes higher than 200 W/cm2. Comparison of shear-driven liquid films and gravity-driven liquid films showed that CHF in shear-driven films up to 10 times higher than in gravity-driven liquid films. Thus, prospect of using shear- driven films of water in modern cooling systems of semiconductor devices was confirmed.