The proposed project Ultra High Pool Boiling Performance on Novel Microstructures through Pulsed Electrodeposition of Graphene/Carbon Nanotubes and their Copper Composites? strives to gain a fundamental understanding of the boiling mechanism over enhanced microstructured surfaces with nanocoatings at preferred locations. A new model that incorporates the role of microconvection in enhancing the boiling heat transfer will be developed and validated by using advanced visualization and measurement techniques employing high speed imaging (up to 25,000 fps), and microthermocouples of 5 - 13 µm dimensions. The model will be further validated through COMSOL Multiphysics® numerical simulation and pool boiling experiments over individually designed microsctruture features with nanocoatings applied over preferred regions. The fundamental insight gained through the localized bubble/liquid motion and the associated heat transfer will provide new avenues in enhancing and modeling the pool boiling heat transfer and critical heat flux (CHF). Some of the recent advances in the field of electrochemistry will be utilized in developing multi-porous graphene-based structures that are highly conductive and can provide controlled morphological features for heat transfer and CHF enhancement.
The pool boiling constitutes an extremely important mode of heat transfer that is applied in a number of critical technologies including power generation (nuclear, fossil fuel, and alternative energy source based), electronics cooling, petrochemical and process industries, and air-conditioning and refrigeration applications. Heat transfer performance improvements in the boiling process are generally aimed at: (i) a reduction in the wall superheat, and (ii) an increase in the maximum heat transfer rate, identified as the critical heat flux. The proposed project provides a new pathway to address both of these performance improvement parameters. The new approach and the modeling proposed in this project will provide a new pathway in improving energy efficiencies of devices utilizing the boiling process. This is in particular of great significance for utilizing alternative thermal energy sources, since the available temperature differences are generally low and are of critical importance.
