Influence of heater size on critical heat flux in flat microchannels with intense localized heating

Abstract

Experiments were carried out on flow boiling in mini- and micro- channels under local heating for different heater size. It was found that with an increase in the channel height in the range of 0.2–3.7 mm, the intensity of heat transfer and the critical heat flux increase significantly. For a given flow rate and channel height, the critical heat flux on the 3x3 mm2 heater exceeds the heat flux on the 10x10 mm2 heater, and the difference increases with increasing channel height. Boiling curves were also obtained.