Lattice Boltzmann study of bubble dynamics and heat transfer on a hybrid rough surface with a cavity-pillar structure

Abstract

In this work, a two-dimensional phase-change lattice Boltzmann model is used to investigate the pool boiling from a hybrid rough surface with a single cavity and one or two pillars on the superheated plate for an entire ebullition cycle. The bubble growth and departure dynamics on the hybrid pillared cavity surfaces, namely a single-pillared cavity surface (a surface with one cavity and one neighbouring pillar) and a double-pillared cavity surface (a surface with one cavity and one pillar on its both sides), are also compared with a simple cavity surface (a surface with only one cavity). The results showed that the incorporation of the pillar to the simple cavity surface increases the surface area and distance between the pinning locations of the three-phase contact line (TCL), and thus, enhances the bubble departure diameter and heat flux. It is found that bubble departure diameter and heat flux increase with cavity-pillar spacing up to a certain value, in this case sp∗ = 0.50, beyond which they start to decease and approach the simple cavity surface case at sp∗ = 1.0, while the opposite trend is observed for bubble departure frequency. The bubble departure diameter, frequency and heat flux also increase with pillar width. Compared to uniformly hydrophilic surfaces, the mixed wettability surfaces exhibit large heat flux with relatively small increase in bubble departure diameter.