Two-phase cooling characteristics of a saturated free falling circular jet of HFE7100 on a heated disk: Effect of jet length

Direct jet impingement boiling heat transfer operating at low flow rates is of great interest for the localized moderate heat fluxes from the targets with delicate mechanical structure, where the aggressive techniques such as high-speed jets are not suitable. Boiling heat transfer from an upward facing disk targeted by a falling jet was studied experimentally at different volumetric flow rates and various jet lengths. The working fluid was chosen to be the dielectric liquid HFE7100 and the heated spot was an 8-mm diameter disk. Using previous CHF correlations in their original form, valid at very low volumetric flow rates, results in large disagreements since it was found that variation in the jet length changes the boiling characteristics. It is demonstrated that although the circular hydraulic jump formation within the heater diameter may suppress the heat transfer under certain conditions, moving the jet closer to the target may significantly improve the boiling curves at the critical heat flux (CHF) regime. At low flow rates, the CHF increases as the jet length decreases while for moderate and high flow rates the boiling curves show approximately a universal behavior for different jet lengths. For such low flow rates, the effect of jet length on boiling curves was shown to be related to the variation of the cross section of the falling jet and the formation of hydraulic jump at radial distances smaller than the heater diameter. The current CHF results for different jet lengths are correlated by including the effect of jet length in the previous correlation proposed by Sharan and Lienhard. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.