Experimental investigation of heat transfer in a rivulet driven by gas flow in a minichannel

Abstract

The heat transfer in a shear driven rivulet flow at isothermal conditions in a minichannel has been studied. The experiments were conducted using the setup, specially designed for the shear driven rivulet flow. The effect of liquid flow rate and substrate temperature on the width of the rivulet was studied experimentally using Laser induced fluorescence technique (LIF). The temperature distribution for different time moments of the rivulet surface was measured by the FLIR infrared (IR) camera. IR-measurements served to demonstrate that rivulet surface temperature is lower than substrate one due to liquid evaporation from the rivulet surface.