NUMERICAL STUDY ON FLOW BOILING IN A TREE-SHAPED MICROCHANNEL

A two-dimensional model is developed to numerically study the water flow boiling through a tree-shaped microchannel by VOF method. In this work, the bubble dynamics and flow patterns along the channel are examined. Additionally, the pressure drop, heat transfer performance and the effects of mass flow rate and heat flux on the heat transfer coefficient are analyzed and discussed. The numerical results indicate that, there are three main bubble dynamic behaviors at the wall, namely coalesce-lift-off, coalesce-slide and coalesce-reattachment. At the bifurcation in high branching level, the slug bubbles may coalesce or breakup. The flow patterns of bubbly, bubbly-slug flows occur at low branching level and slug flow occurs at high branching level. The passage of bubbles causes the increasing of fluid temperature and local pressure. Additionally, the pressure drop decreases with the branching level. The flow pattern and channel confinement effect play a vital role in heat transfer performance. The nucleate boiling dominant heat transfer is observed at low branching level, the heat transfer performance is enhanced with increasing branching level from k = 0 to 2. While, at high branching level, the heat transfer performance becomes weaker due to the suppression of nucleate boiling. Moreover, the heat transfer coefficient increases with the mass flow rate and heat flux.