Research Proposal on

ENHANCEMENT OF POOL BOILING HEAT TRANSFER

USING BINARY SURFACE

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

by

A V V R PRASAD Y
187ME001

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KARNATAKA
SURATHKAL, MANGALORE – 575025
10th JANUARY-2019
 Research Proposal on

ENHANCEMENT OF POOL BOILING HEAT TRANSFER

USING BINARY SURFACE

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
by
A V V R PRASAD Y
(187ME001)

Under the guidance of

Dr. (Mrs.) A. SATHYABHAMA

Associate Professor

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KARNATAKA
SURATHKAL, MANGALORE – 575025
10th JANUARY-2019
 CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURE

NOMENCLATURE

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Need for thermal management 1

1.2 Types of cooling techniques 1
1.3 Boiling 2
1.4 Pool boiling 3
1.5 Enhancement of pool boiling by changing surface characteristics 4
1.5.1 Effect of wettability contrast on pool boiling 4
1.5.2 Effect of separate path flows for liquid and departed vapour on pool boiling 6
REVIEW OF LITERATURE 9

2.1 Introduction 9
2.2 Studies on pool boiling enhancement by wettability contrast 9
2.3 Studies on pool boiling enhancement by separating pathways for replenishing 11
liquid and departed
2.4 Critical literature review 12
2.5 Scope and objectives of the present work 13
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH 14

3.1 Experimental Setup 14

3.2 Experimental Procedure 16
3.3 Data Reduction 17
3.4 Image Processing 18

PROPOSED RESEARCH SCHEDULE 20

REFERENCES 21

i
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page No.

Title of Figure
No.

1.1 Classification of cooling techniques in various engineering applications 2

1.2 Pool boiling curve of an upward facing horizontal surface 3
1.3 Biphilic and Super biphilic surfaces 5
1.4 Bi-functional surface 5
1.5 Fins at micro level promoting separate path ways 6
1.6 Bi conductive surface containing of epoxy resin on a copper substrate 7
1.7 Schematic of binary surface 7
3.1 Experimental setup 15
16
3.2 Photograph of Experimental setup
3.3 Temperature profile along the test piece 18

ii
 NOMENCLATURE

Dd : bubble departure diameter (mm)

f : bubble frequency
h : heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
hfg : latent heat (J/kg)
kl : thermal conductivity (W/mK)
q : heat flux (W/m2)
qcr : critical heat flux (W/m2)
tg : bubble growth
tw : waiting time for bubble to incipient
Vb : bubble terminal velocity
Greek symbols
α : liquid thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
ρl : liquid density (kg/m3)
ρv :vapor density (kg/m3)
μ : liquid dynamic viscosity (kg/ms)
σ : surface tension of liquid solid combination
ΔT : degree of superheat (K)

iii
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Need for thermal management

Thermal management is a major challenge in various engineering applications, where

high power dissipation rates (0.1-100W/cm2) are required. These include but not limited to
nuclear cladding, high-performance heat exchangers, concentrated photovoltaics, integrated
circuits, compression ignition engines, and metallurgical applications. Many of these have
become an integral part of our daily life directly or indirectly like electronic components.
Electronic components may consist of integrated circuits and logic chips, whose temperature is
to be maintained less than 85oC. Ability to dissipate the heat efficiently may increase the
reliability of the devices. Miniaturization of electronic components further increases the
challenge of heat dissipation. Therefore, the advancement of technology holds the interest of
many researchers to find the efficient cooling techniques to satisfy ever increasing demands of
thermal management over many years.

1.2 Types of cooling techniques

Various cooling techniques are being implemented in diverse engineering applications.

Figure 1.1 lists the different cooling techniques that are being employed in engineering
applications. The choice of a cooling technique depends upon the application. Broadly, cooling
techniques can be classified as (i) Active and (ii) Passive.

Active cooling techniques are those which are assisted by mechanical equipment such as
fan, blower, compressor etc. These require external energy to be supplied for the heat removal
process. They offer high cooling capacity and allow temperature to maintain even below that of
the ambient. Forced convection with air/liquid, spray cooling, impinging air/liquid jet, thermo-
electric cooling, refrigeration systems, etc. come under the category of active cooling techniques.

1
 Fig 1.1. Classification of cooling techniques in various engineering applications (anandan et al)

Passive cooling techniques are those which are not assisted by mechanical systems.
Natural convection, heat pipes, phase change based cooling, and thermo-syphons, etc. come
under the category of passive cooling techniques. Passive cooling techniques have the advantage
of low-noise operation, no external power consumption, etc. Among the passive methods, phase
change cooling technique yields the maximum dissipation rates owing to the advantage of latent
heat
1.3 Boiling

Boiling is a phase change phenomenon in which liquid is converted into vapour. Boiling
is generally two types. The one in which the heating surface is submerged in a quiescent part of
liquid, and the heat transfer occur by free convection and bubble agitation . The process is
known as pool boiling. The pool boiling may further be divided into sub-cooled or local boiling
and saturated or bulk boiling. If the temperature of the liquid is below the saturation temperature,
the process is known as sub-cooled, or local, boiling. If the liquid is maintained at saturation
temperature, the process is known as saturated or bulk boiling.

The other form of the boiling is known as forced convective boiling in which the boiling
occurs simultaneously with fluid motion induced by externally imposed pressure difference. The
focus of the present work is to enhance heat dissipation by pool boiling.

2
1.4 Pool boiling

Pool boiling is critical heat removal process in which heated surface is immersed in a
pool of liquid. This process has a substantial potential for heat removal. Based on the mechanism
of heat transfer, pool boiling phenomenon is characterized into different regimes as shown in fig
1.2. An important one among them is nucleate boiling heat transfer regime, in which the surface
temperature exceeds the saturation temperature and bubble nucleation, growth occurs near the
heater surface. The heat flux in this regime increases sharply as a result of bubble formation; this
feature makes this regime more suitable for heat removal process. Next stage of nucleate boiling
is film boiling, in which vapour blanket forms on the heater surface. This is called dry out and it
increases the surface temperature abruptly by restricting the replenishing liquid to interact with
heater surface. The maximum heat flux prior to film boiling is referred as critical heat flux
(CHF). Heat transfer coefficient (HTC) is the qualitative measure of efficiency of the pool
boiling.

Fig 1.2. Pool boiling curve of an upward facing horizontal surface. (Dhir et al)

The performance of pool boiling can be improved in two ways, either by improving the
HTC with onset of nucleate boiling (ONB) at low wall super heats or by delaying the CHF with

3
increasing the wettability of the surface. Many approaches have been proposed in order to delay
the CHF or to improve the HTC. These activities include but are not limited to changing surface
characteristics (morphology), changing the orientation of heater and using conductive
operational liquids. The focus of the current work is to understand the underlying physics, which
enhance the pool boiling performance by surface modifications. This exercise also helps to
understand the scope for further enhancement.
1.5 Enhancement of pool boiling by changing surface characteristics

Enhancement of pool boiling performance strongly depends on the surface characteristics

of the heater such as size, shape, and availability of nucleation sites on the surface. This surface
dependence, actually allows the researchers to develop high-performance surfaces. Changing
surface characteristics may cause wettability contrast or provide separate path flows for
replenishing liquid and departed vapour.

1.5.1 Effect of wettability contrast on pool boiling

Wettability is a significant characteristic of a solid surface which is controlled by

chemical etching or nano/micro level coatings. Hydrophilic surfaces maintain low contact angle
of the liquid with the surface (highly wettable) and promote lateral wicking of liquid on the
surface. Lateral wicking of liquid keeps the surface wet at high heat fluxes. This ability delays
the dry-out and enhances the CHF. But, lateral wicking reduces the gas trapping ability of the
surface, which delays the formation of nucleation and reduces HTC. This emphasizes the
complexities of boiling and the difficulty in engineering surfaces for its enhancement.

4
 Fig 1.3. Biphilic and Super biphilic surfaces (Betz et al.)

One reported method to improve HTC is by increasing the active nucleation sites at low
wall superheats. It was achieved by including hydrophobic (least wettable) spots on a hydrophilic
surface and called as a biphilic surface. With further improvement in wettability contrast, the
surfaces are called superbiphilic surfaces. These surfaces were made in two steps. Initially, the
plain substrate was converted to a highly wettable surface either by chemical etching or
micro/nanostructured coating. Then hydrophobic spots of nanometer level thickness were placed
on the hydrophilic surface by a photolithographic technique. Fig 1.3 represents the biphilic and
super biphilic surfaces. Though biphilic and super biphilic surfaces showed excellent
improvement in increasing CHF and HTC, the limitations of these surfaces exist in their
manufacturing using the standard photolithographic technique, cost effectiveness, mechanical
resistance and thermal stability.

Fig 1.4. Bi-functional surface (Choi et al.)

5
 Bi-functional surfaces (fig: 1.4) are also a network of hydrophilic and
hydrophobic islands on a substrate. The unique feature of this surface was hydrophobic regions
were lower than the hydrophilic regions. So that, hydrophilic regions wick the liquid into
hydrophobic spots to increase the volume of replenishing liquid near the nucleation sites.

1.5.2 Effect of separate path flows for liquid and departed vapour on pool boiling

Evaporation at liquid-vapor interface of a fluid induces a rapid movement to the bubble,

which causes motion to the bulk of the fluid and it is called micro convection heat transfer, and it
increases as the velocity of liquid-vapor interface increases. Micro convection heat transfer can
be used to achieve a separate path flows for liquid and departed vapour

Micro convection heat transfer on a plane substrate may be achieved either by providing
fins at the micro level with a symmetric indentation on the surface or by embedding rows of low
thermal conductivity epoxy resin into a high thermal conductivity substrate (Bi-conductive
surface) or by creating a distinct co-existing phase on the substrate (Binary surface). Providing
separate path flows for liquid and vapor showed excellent improvement in HTC and CHF.

Fig 1.5. Fins at micro level promoting separate path ways (Kandilkar et al.)

Figure 1.3 represents the schematic of the substrate with fins at a micro level to create
separate path flows for vapor and liquid. The bubble moves away from the fin and sweeps over
the contoured surface, while liquid flows over the fin toward the nucleation sites. Since vapor
does not interrupt the liquid flow, CHF is enhanced. The incoming liquid traverses over the short
fin, and the developing thermal boundary layer enhances heat transfer. Thus, both CHF and HTC
are enhanced.

6
 Fig 1.6. Bi conductive surface containing of epoxy resin on a copper substrate (Rahman
et al.)

Figure 1.6 represents the schematic of the bi-conductive surface. By embedding a low-
conductivity epoxy into a high-conductivity substrate in a periodic arrangement represents a bi-
conductive surface. Variation in thermal conductivity within the surface generates the difference
in surface temperature on heating. During boiling the epoxy divisions remain cold (nearly equal
to the fluid saturation temperature), and therefore suppress nucleation and remain wetted at all
times. As the surface is initially heated the liquid above the heated substrate gets warmer and is
replaced by the cold liquid from the epoxy divisions due to natural convection.

Although bi-conductive surfaces showed significant improvement in CHF and HTC, the
epoxy resin has certain limitations. After embedding the epoxy resin in the copper substrate, it is
cured at 930 for two hours followed by 1630 for twelve hours to achieve a maximum strength
bond. Shrinkage defects may not arise during the cure, but a sample cracking may occur under
cooling, which causes adhesive deboning and makes it fragile.

Another approach to achieve separate pathways for liquid and vapor is a binary surface
(BiS). BiS is a combination of a surface with distinct coexisting phases (liquid phase and solid
phase). BiS preparation is two stages. In the first stage, a bulk micro nano structuring of a plain
substrate is to be carried out to produce a highly wettable ultra omniphilic surface (UOS) with
many micro/nano connected cavities. In the second stage, UOS is to be saturated with a liquid to
form BiS. The liquid used to saturate UOS is a non boiling liquid (NBL). The boiling point of
NBL should be higher than boiling liquid (BL), and NBL and BL should be immiscible.

Fig 1.7. Schematic of binary surface (Holguin et al.)

7
 Pool boiling enhancement using a binary surface can be attributed to the presence of
immiscible non-boiling liquid puddles separating the solid islands on which nucleation of the
vapour bubbles of the boiling liquid occurs. This feature of a binary surface helps in two ways:
(i) Avoid or minimize the lateral coalescence of vapour bubbles, this delays the dry out and
enhances the CHF (ii) Direct the replenishing liquid on to the solid islands by natural convection,
this helps in improving bubble frequency and enhances HTC. Binary surfaces are inexpensive
and very easy to manufacture. Despite many advantages with binary surfaces, there are no
reports on binary surfaces suitable for boiling water to the best of knowledge.

8
CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

This chapter presents a critical review of literature pertinent to the present study. For ease
and clarity of presentation, the literature review is divided into following sections.

• Studies on pool boiling enhancement by wettability contrast

• Studies on pool boiling enhancement by separating pathways for replenishing liquid and
departed

2.2 Studies on pool boiling enhancement by wettability contrast

Wettability represents the apparent contact angle of water with the surface. Experimental
studies on the effect of wettability variation within the surface are provided in this section.

Wang et al., (1993) conducted experiments to report the effect of wettability on

nucleation site density in pool boiling of saturated water at atmospheric pressure. The
conclusions of the investigation were, increase in wettability improves CHF and decrease in
wettability reduces the wall superheat required for the onset of nucleate boiling (ONB).
Betz et al., (2010) conducted pool boiling experiments on a silicon substrate with water at
atmospheric pressure. Two configurations of the silicon substrate tested, one is a hydrophilic
network (hydrophobic islands on a hydrophilic surface), and the other is a hydrophobic network
(hydrophilic islands on a hydrophobic surface). Conclusions of the investigation were
hydrophobic networks improve HTC and reduce CHF, and hydrophilic networks improve both
CHF and HTC. The hydrophilic network showed 65% improvement in CHF and 100%
improvement in HTC over a plain silicon substrate.

Betz et al., (2013) developed the first superbiphilic (SPBi) surface on a silicon substrate
by juxtaposing superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces. Pool boiling experiment on
SPBi surface (50 µm spot and d/p =0.5) at one atmospheric pressure showed improvement in
both HTC and CHF. The growth in HTC is due to SBPi surfaces provide active nucleation sites

9
larger in number than the smooth surface. The reported value of HTC is 300% higher than the
smooth hydrophilic surface.

Rahman et al., (2014) carried out experiments to check the role of wickability to enhance
the CHF on a bio templated nanostructured superhydrophilic surface. Wickability is a parameter
analogous to contact angle, and it is quantified by wicked volume flux, which facilitates to
optimize the need of further nano scale coatings required to enhance the CHF. Nanostructured
coating on bare copper substrates assist the lateral wicking of liquids during boiling, which was
the possible reason in delay of burnout and enhancing CHF by 68%, but this feature suppresses
the active nucleation sites and thus causes the reduction in HTC by 19%. This argument is a
contrast in case of silicon substrates as it shows a simultaneous improvement in both HTC and
CHF upon nanostructured coatings, the density of active nucleation sites on the polished silicon
substrate are much lesser than the nanostructured silicon substrate could be the possible reason
for this.

Zupancic et al., (2015) made a biphilic (hydrophobic/superhydrophilic) network on a

stainless steel substrate using a ND-YAG laser. Thin, stainless-steel foils were air-sprayed with
the primary coating, made of hydrophobic fumed silica and polydimethylsiloxane resin. Surface
analyses showed that the coating exhibits a high hydrophobicity due to its hierarchical structure
together with the use of a hydrophobic polymer. Then the surface is thermally treated with a
pulsed Nd: YAG laser in selected regions causes the oxidation of methyl groups and the
formation of silicon oxide and silicon carbide that result in a wettability transfer from
hydrophobic to super-hydrophilic. The experimental results on this surface showed 200% higher
CHF compared to the bare stainless steel and HTC as 51.2 KW/m2K.

Choi et al., (2015) made a bi-functional heterogeneous (biphilic) surface. Unlike the
traditional etching followed by photolithography, it was formed by piezoelectric ink jet printing
of hydrophobic polymer followed by deposition aqueous hydrophilic ZnO nanostructure by
microreactor assisted nano-deposition (MAND) processing. The unique feature in a bi-
functional surface is hydrophobic regions are lower than the hydrophilic region, it does help in
directing the liquid into a hydrophobic region by wicking action from hydrophilic areas, thus
increasing the volume of replenishing liquid — the experimental results of pool boiling on bi-

10
functional heterogeneous stainless steel surface records maximum CHF as 35 W/cm2 and HTC
as 12 KW/m2K.

2.3 Studies on pool boiling enhancement by separating pathways for replenishing liquid
and departed

It was mentioned in the previous chapter that micro convention heat transfer promotes
separate pathways for vapor and liquid flows to improve HTC and CHF. Given this, several
researchers have employed different techniques to achieve separate path flows. Comprehensive
literature on pool boiling enhancement by separate path flows for replenishing liquid and
departed vapor, reported in this section.

Kandlikar et al., (2013) hypothesized that micro convection force could be utilized to
enhance heat transfer and critical heat flux by directing the interface motion over the heated
surface and creating separate liquid-vapor pathways. A surface structure designed from this
model resulted in a significant heat transfer coefficient and CHF enhancements. A record heat
transfer coefficient of 629 KW/m2K at a CHF of 3MW/m2 has been attained with water using
this enhancement technique on a copper surface.

Rahman et al., (2015) conducted pool boiling experiments on a bi-conductive copper surface
using water at atmospheric pressure. As discussed in chapter one bi-conductive surface consists
of embedded low thermal conductive epoxy resin in a high conductive copper substrate in a
periodic arrangement. The investigation carried out to find out the effect of the pitch between
epoxy divisions on boiling performance, finding an optimal value equal to the capillary length
of the fluid λc as shown in equation 2.1.

𝜎
λc = √(𝑔(𝜌 −𝜌 )) (2.1)
𝑙 𝑣

The experimental results maintaining epoxy pitch as capillary length agreed with the hypothesis
discussed in chapter one and CHF and HTC are recorded as 230 W/cm2 and 210 KW/m2K
respectively.

11
 Rahman et al., (2017) fabricated a heterogeneous surface by combining nano coating with
mixed wettability, and in-plane variations of thermal conductivity. Experimental results of pool
boiling on heterogeneous copper substrate report CHF as 307 W cm2 and HTC as 747 KW/m2K.

Holguin et al., (2017) devised a binary surface consisting of many micro/nano cavities filled
with a non-boiling liquid (e.g., water), which created puddles around solid islands, to assist
nucleate boiling of the primary working fluid (e.g., dielectric fluid PF-5060). Presence of
immiscible non-boiling liquid in the puddles was found to provide the combined benefits of
aiding bubble departure from the solid island, resisting bubble coalescence, and assisting surface
re-wetting. A binary copper surface with water puddles provided 7.5 times enhancement in
average heat transfer coefficient for PF-5060, and 2.2 times CHF improvement. However, the
performance of this binary surface was limited by the saturation temperature of the non-boiling
liquid, exceeding which the non-boiling liquid would begin to boil and depleted from the heating
surface.

Jaikumar et al., (2018) employed the Nucleating Region with Feeder Channel (NRFC)
configuration to enforce separate liquid-vapor pathway. The architecture on this surface was
such that the Nucleating Regions (NRs) were spaced to avoid lateral bubble coalescence and
create convective liquid jets in the regions between adjacent NRs. These regions were enhanced
with feeder channels (FCs) to facilitate liquid directionality towards the NRs. In this mechanism,
the departing bubbles from the NRs induce a jet impingement heat transfer over the FC. The
enhancement is an outcome of uninterrupted liquid flow, single-phase liquid jet impingement,
and developing flow in the FC. The efficacy of this mechanism resulted in a CHF of 400 W/cm2
at a wall superheat of 5.5 o C obtained with water when the FC length was equal to the bubble
departure diameter.

2.4 Critical literature review

A broad research is done for the pool boiling heat transfer analysis with various surface
modifications. The aim of all attempts is either to create wettability contrast or to create micro
convection heat transfer. The mechanism of enhancement in both the methods is well explained
by many researchers. Visualization of bubble incipience, growth, departure, coalescence and
frequency were studied for most of the methods. Though many approaches showed significant

12
improvements in both CHF and HTC, some of them are not suitable for long term usage, some of
them are thermal sensitive and some of them are not cost effective. Binary surfaces are the best
amongst the reported methods for being cost-effective, reliable and durable.

2.5 Scope and objectives of the present work

From the review of the literature, it is clear that binary surfaces are which enhance the
pool boiling heat transfer by promoting micro convection heat transfer to achieve separate path
flows for replenishing liquid and departed vapor. It is also scalable, durable and cost-effective.
The reported literature gives substantial evidence on improvement in CHF and HTC by using
binary surfaces, but to the best of our knowledge, there is no literature available on the
visualization of the phenomenon to defend the hypothesis. Till now binary surfaces are used to
boil only dielectric liquids like PF 5060. A binary surface suitable for boiling liquids with high
latent heat of vapourization can be made and the process of boiling can be critically examined by
visualizing with high speed camera to understand and validate the hypothesis available in the
literature. Following are the objectives of the present study.

• To prepare a durable and scalable binary surface on copper substrate suitable for boiling
water
• Comparative study of pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of plain, ultra omniphilic
and binary surfaces on a copper substrate.
• To study the bubble dynamics (bauble frequency, nucleation density, bubble departure
diameter etc.) on a binary surface to perceive the physical mechanism responsible for
enhancing the pool boiling heat transfer.

13
CHAPTER 3

EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

3.1 Experimental Setup

(a) Schematic of experimental setup

(b) Test section

14
 (c) CAD image of heating block

Figure 3.1. Experimental setup (all dimensions are in mm)

Fig. 3.1 (a) shows the schematic diagram of the experimental setup with part details, (b)
location of the thermocouple implanted in the test piece, (c) CAD model of heating block
assembly and photograph of the setup is shown in Fig. 3.2. The experimental setup shown in
Fig. 3.1 (a) consists of 250×400×200 mm3 rectangular boiling chamber made up of SS 304 fitted
with SS 304 flange at the top and at the bottom. The top flange has provisions for liquid
charging, condenser cooling water inlet and outlet. Bottom flange has provision to insert test
section in the chamber. Pressure transducer and drain is provided on side wall of the chamber.
The vessel is fitted with two sight glasses to observe the boiling phenomena. The copper
condenser coil is connected to cooling water tank through a pump and a PID. An auxiliary heater
of 500 W capacity is provided through the side wall to maintain the water at constant
temperature (saturated/sub cooled) during experimentation. The heating base block and test
surface is made of copper. Four high density cartridge heaters with the capacity of 200W/230V
can be facilitated from the bottom of the block. A 6 mm diameter and 50 mm length cartridge
heaters are connected in parallel combination so as to get maximum 800 W resultant heat input.
For steady state observations, an incremental sample of heat supply is controlled by the
autotransformer for approximately 10 minutes of the interval time.
High temperature Silicon Gasket is used to ensure leak proof assembly. A threaded joint
ensures the air-tight fitting of 20 mm thick replaceable copper circular test piece (ϕ=19.5 mm).
An arctic silver paste is applied over the joint for uniform temperature distribution across the
diameter of the test piece and to reduce thermal contact resistance.

15
 Figure 3.2 Photograph of Experimental setup

1 mm diameter K-type SS 304 sheathed thermocouples are planted at the center of the
test piece as 2 mm, 6 mm and 10 mm from the top surface corresponding to T1, T2, T3
temperature readings, respectively, to measure axial temperature variations, as shown in Fig. 3.1
(b) Additional 4 mm diameter K-type sheathed thermocouples are provided to measure top and
bottom fluid temperature. Mean of two temperature readings are considered as the saturated or
sub cooled temperature of the boiling fluid. A pressure transducer is used to measure the vapor
pressure in the chamber. The electrical output from all these sensors are collected and displayed
digitally on the panel. Boiling characteristics are observed by high speed camera- AOS Promon
501.

3.2 Experimental Procedure

The boiling vessel is filled with 2.5 liters pure water. The atmospheric test pressure is set
in the logger. At first, auxiliary heater is switched on to maintain the fluid temperature as
saturated or sub cooled. As constant fluid temperature is achieved, test heater is switched on. The
PID senses the pressure level in the boiling chamber through pressure transducer and compares it
with the set value in the logger. When the chamber pressure become equal to the set pressure, the
PID sends a signal to cooling water pump to open the suction line and pump water through the
condenser coils. Cooling fluid of the condenser coils condensed the vapor inside the boiling
chamber and thus the pressure is maintained constant. Then, the tests are started by giving
constant heat input increments or the programmed exponential voltage current signals for steady

16
and transient studies, respectively. High speed data acquisition is used to acquire the pressure,
metal rod temperature values across the time.
3.3 Data Reduction

The heater rod and test piece can be considered as axi symmetric system. The thermal
conductivity of the copper rod is assumed to be constant within the operating temperature range.
The heat flux from the top surface of the metal rod is assumed uniform. The heat flux across a
section of the copper rod and test piece is assumed to be uniform and the radial heat loss through
the PTFE is assumed to be uniform along the rod. The heat flux dissipated to the boiling fluid
and surface temperature can be estimated by the three implanted thermocouples. Quadratic
temperature profile is noticed across the length of test piece and can be written as in equation 3.1

𝑇𝑥 = 𝑎 ∗ 𝑥2 − 𝑏 ∗ 𝑥 + 𝑐

(3.1)
Where, x is the distance across the length of test piece from the top

Substituting three temperature readings and corresponding distance from the top surface in the
above quadratic equation, we can obtain the values of constants a, b and c.
Second order backward Taylor series is given in equation 3.2

𝑑𝑇 𝑥 2 𝑑2 𝑇
𝑇0 = 𝑇1 − 𝑥 (𝑑𝑥 ) + (𝑑𝑥 2 ) + ⋯ …. (3.2 )
1 2 2

Comparing the equations 3.1 and 3.2, we can write

By using Taylor’s backward series approximation as given in equation 3.3, we can get
𝑑𝑇 3𝑇1 −4𝑇2 +𝑇3
𝑏= = (3.3)
𝑑𝑥 2∗∆𝑥

Where, Δ𝑥= distance between two thermocouple

The heat flux from the top test surface was calculated using Fourier 1-D conduction equation as
given in equation 3.4

17
 𝑑𝑇
𝑞 ′′ = −𝑘𝑐𝑢 𝑑𝑥 (3.4)

Figure 3.3 Temperature profile along the test piece

And surface temperature can be extrapolated as given in equation 3.5

𝑥
𝑇𝑠 = 𝑇1 − 𝑞 ′′ (𝑘 1 ) (3.5)
𝑐𝑢

Where, x1 is the distance of the top thermocouple (T1) from the test surface, as shown in Fig.
3.4. Heat Transfer coefficient can be estimated by Newton’s law of cooling using saturated
temperature of the fluid (Tf) and surface temperature (Ts) is given in equation 3.6.

𝑞 ′′
ℎ= (3.6)
𝑇𝑠 −𝑇𝑓

3.4 Image Processing

A high speed camera (AOS Promon 501) with 1000 frames/sec is used for visualization
of pool, boiling on top of the test surface. The camera is positioned in front of the sight glass. A
concentrated light source is placed in front of another sight glass opposite to the camera to give
uniform illumination of the test surface. A gigabyte Ethernet cable which acts as data logger
connects the camera with PC for data transfer. Nikon lens 50 mm FL/f1.4D is used. Promon
studio viewer software interfaces camera with PC. The camera can record live cine sequence of
boiling phenomenon on the test surface at a frame rate of 1000 fps (frame per second) with
resolution of 320*240 pixel. These recorded cine sequence are played back and as per the
requirement the cine length is marked frame by frame and converted into sequence of images

18
which are processed in MATLAB image processing tool to determine bubble diameter in pixel as
a function of time
The image of reference object with known size is carefully processed by image
processing program of MATLAB to estimate the corresponding pixel size. Bubble departure
diameter, as given in equation 3.7, can be estimated using the frame at point of departure. The
average of 30 measured bubble diameter is considered as average bubble diameter.
Bubble departure diameter =
[No. of pixels of captured image * Actual size of reference object]/ [No. of pixels of reference
object] (3.7)
The frequency of the bubble is vital parameter in bubble dynamics. The number of
bubble generated and departed from the same nucleation site per second is called as bubble
frequency. Bubble frequency is the reciprocal of summation of waiting period and growth period
of the bubble as shown in equation 3.8. Time taken by the bubble to grow from nucleation to
departure is called growth period (tg) and time taken to the nucleate the next bubble generation
after the departure of preceding bubble from the same site is called waiting period (tw).
1
𝑓= (3.8)
𝑡𝑤 +𝑡𝑔

The bubble terminal velocity (Vb) is calculated from a slope of straight-line fit curve of
the rising bubble trajectory as given in equation 3.9.
Vb = Distance travelled by the rising bubble / travel time (3.9)

19
 PROPOSED RESEARCH SCHEDULE

Aug Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Dec Jan Feb Apr May Jun Aug
2018 2018 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2019 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020
Course
work
Literature
review
Research
proposal
Fabrication
of the
binary
surface
Experiments
(plain
surface)
Experiments
(Ultra
omniphilic
surface)
Experiments
(Binary
surface)
Research
progress I
Study of
bubble
dynamics
Research
progress II
Pre-synopsis
Synopsis
Thesis
writing

20
REFERENCES

Betz and Attinger (2010). Do Surfaces with Mixed Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Areas Enhance
Pool Boiling?, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 97, issue 14, Paper # 141909.

Betz and Jenkins (2013). Boiling Heat Transfer on Superhydrophilic, Super- hydrophobic, and
Superbiphilic Surfaces, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 57, pp. 733–741.

Choi and David (2016). Large-scale Generation of Patterned Bubble Arrays on Printed Bi-
functional Boiling Surfaces, Scientific Reports , Vol. 6, Paper#23760.

Jaikumar and Kandlikar (2018) Interplay between developing flow length and bubble departure
diameter during macro convection enhanced pool boiling, Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 071603 (2018); doi:
10.1063/1.5016307

Kandlikar (2013). Controlling Bubble Motion Over Heated Surface Through Evaporation
Momentum Force to Enhance Pool Boiling Heat Transfer, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 102,
issue 5, Paper # 051611.

Mikic and Rohsenow (1969). Anew Correlation of Pool-Boiling Data Including the Effect of
Heating Surface Characteristics, Journal of Heat Transfer, vol. 91, issue 2, pp. 245–250.

Rahman and McCarthy (2017). Boiling Enhancement on Nanostructured Surfaces with

Engineered Variations in Wettability and Thermal Conductivity, Heat Transfer Engineering,
VOL. 38, NOS. 14-15, 1285–129.

Rahman and Pollack (2015). Increasing Boiling Heat Transfer using Low Conductivity
Materials, Scientific Reports, vol. 5, Paper #13145.

Rahman and McCarthy (2014). Role of Wickability on the Critical Heat Flux of Structured
Superhydrophilic Surfaces, Langmuir, vol. 30, issue 37, pp. 11225–11234.

Wang and Dhir (1993) On the Gas Entrapment and Nucleation Site Density During Pool Boiling
of Saturated Water J. Heat Transfer 115(3), 670-679.

Zupancic and Steinbucher (2015). Enhanced pool-boiling heat transfer on laser-made

hydrophobic/superhydrophilic polydimethylsiloxane-silica patterned surfaces, Applied Thermal
Engineering 91 - 288-297.

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