Numerical study on heat and mass transfer characteristics of surface wettability

Abstract

It has been shown that wettability has an important effect on the surface’s heat transfer performance. In this article, the effects of different wettability of the surfaces of the micropillar array on the heat transfer performance under the same working condition (single-wettability and mixed-wettability surfaces) are compared by numerical simulation, the effects of the surface’s geometrical structure on the flow state of the workpiece and the behavior of the bubbles are also described. It is found that the mixed wettability surfaces combine the characteristics of hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces can effectively reduce the wall temperature. The microcolumn array further enhances the boiling heat transfer effect by perturbing the flow process of the workpiece while increasing the heated area. The surface structure of the hydrophobic top combined with hydrophilic sidewalls can significantly improve the heat transfer performance by 10%∼40% during the stable boiling process.