Dynamics and heat transfer characteristics of isolated liquid film in spray cooling

Abstract

Although the understanding of spray cooling has significantly improved, knowledge of the heat transfer mechanisms is still limited, and the related models based on experiments are separated from physical phenomena. As an example, while liquid film morphology have been investigated in detail, comparatively little is known about how the liquid films evolve on the surface, owing to the strong interaction and disturbance between atomised droplets and thin films with high turbulence. In this study, the liquid film dynamics of HFE-7000 spray in a two-phase cooling regime on a smooth and unpolished silicon surface were quantitatively captured, including the film morphology, film velocity, wetted area, and contact line length, under different inlet pressures and heat fluxes. Owing to the thermally induced agglomeration with increasing heat flux, the continuous liquid film finally dispersed into an isolated state, which is quantitatively defined as the ‘isolated film regime’ by the critical interval of the wetted area. The velocity of the isolated film under various conditions is a consequence of the radial velocity of the atomised droplets, surface conditions, and surface temperature gradient. Based on the correlation of the radial velocity of atomised droplets, prediction methods for the distribution and surface-averaged velocity of isolated films are proposed.