Review on research progress in boiling acoustics

Abstract

Ever-growing miniaturization of electronic devices and space-conserving endeavours of heat transfer systems pose a challenging task to the current cooling strategies. Boiling acoustics is one of the most potent and efficacious methodologies to reliably predict the boiling regime inside the cooling systems to assay the safety and address the emergency conditions. Boiling acoustics is gripping attention out of the few foreseeable technologies for the future cooling requirements. Though the potentiality of boiling acoustics was unravelled in the late 1990s, the research data present in this arena is however lacking. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the literature reported from the 1970s to the present date. Furthermore, this paper also details the evolution of boiling acoustics from the initial application of boiling incipience detection to regime identification. Much focus is given on salient features of boiling acoustic characterization dealing with the regime detection. Effects of various parameters such as thermos-physical properties of the heater surface and the boiling liquid that directly or indirectly influence the acoustic spectra are also presented. The prediction of the boiling regime constitutes the first necessary step in producing autonomous cooling systems. Hence, the detection and characterization of boiling noise under various conditions such as pressure, heat flux, and flow rate is essential.