Effect of nucleation cavities on enhanced boiling heat transfer in microchannels

Boiling instabilities, high temperatures of the onset of boiling (ONB), and early transition to dryout are some of the insufficiently resolved issues of flow boiling in microchannels. This article addresses the flow boiling challenges with the incorporation of flow restrictors to reduce the boiling instabilities and hinder vapor backflows. In addition, the temperature of the ONB was lowered and the heat transfer coefficient was increased during boiling with the fabrication of potential nucleation cavities in the microchannel walls and bottom. Experiments were conducted with degassed double-distilled water in arrays of microchannels with the hydraulic diameter ranging from 25 to 80 µm, whereas the nucleation cavities characteristic sizes varied from 2 to 12 µm. The temperatures of the ONB were up to 35 K lower in the microchannel array with properly sized nucleation cavities compared to arrays of microchannels, in which the etched nucleation cavities were less suitable. The combined effect of fabricated nucleation cavities and interconnected microchannels increased the heat transfer coefficient from three to 10 times depending on the size of the etched nucleation cavities and the transferred heat flux in the microchannel arrays.