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Experimental Study on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Characteristics of Ammonia in Microchannels

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Abstract

To solve the heat dissipation problem of high heat flux components on spacecraft, experiments were carried out to investigate the flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of ammonia in a microchannel heat sink. Verified by gravity-independent criteria, the experimental results can be used to predict the performance of flow boiling heat transfer in microgravity environment. The heat sink consisted of 37 V-shaped microchannels with hydraulic diameters of 280 μm and channel lengths of 45 mm. Saturated flow boiling experiments were conducted with heat fluxes of 60.2~134.3 W/cm2, mass fluxes of 165~883 kg/m2s and saturation temperatures of 25 and 35 °C, as well as subcooled flow boiling experiments with inlet subcooling of 5 °C as a comparison. According to the experimental results, the following conclusions can be drawn. (1) As the mass flow rate increases, higher wall superheat is needed to trigger nucleate boiling. (2) In a lower mass flux range, the heat transfer coefficient changes drastically with mass flux, showing convective boiling characteristics, while the value varies slightly in a higher mass flux range, indicating that the nucleate boiling mechanism is dominant. (3) Under the experimental conditions in this work, the average heat transfer coefficient of ammonia reaches its peak when the outlet vapor quality is between 0.21 and 0.31. (4) A subcooled inlet condition has a suppression effect on the average heat transfer capacity of the working fluid at high mass flux, and increasing the saturation temperature reduces the average heat transfer coefficient. In addition, a comparison between the experimental results and existing correlations demonstrated that the correlation proposed by Fang predicted the experimental results well, and then a modified Fang correlation was proposed based on the experimental data obtained in this study. The results could provide references for the prediction of flow boiling heat transfer performance in aerospace environments and the design of heat dissipation systems.

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Abbreviations

A :

total heat transfer area of microchannels, m2

A b :

footprint area of microchannel heat sink, m2

Bn:

Bond number

Bo:

Boiling number

c P, l :

specific heat of fluid, kJ/(kg · K)

d :

distance between thermocouples and upper surface of copper block, m

d h :

hydraulic diameter, m

F:

convective two-phase multiplier

Fa:

Fang number

Fr:

Froude number

g:

gravitational acceleration, m/s2

G :

mass flux, kg/(m2s)

H :

channel height, m

h :

heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2K)

h m :

average heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2K)

h lm :

equivalent heat transfer coefficient of liquid metal, W/(m2K)

I:

current, A

k :

thermal conductivity, W/(m ∙ K)

L :

channel length, m

M:

molar mass, g/mol

MAE:

mean absolute error, %

MRE:

mean relative error, %

m :

fin parameter

\( \overset{.}{m} \) :

mass flow rate, kg/s

PR :

reduced pressure

Pr:

Prandtl number

P :

pressure, kPa

∆P :

differential pressure, kPa

Q e :

input power, W

Q eff :

effective heat power, W

Q loss :

heat loss, W

Re:

Reynolds number

q :

heat flux, W/m2

S:

suppression factor of nucleate boiling

T :

temperature, °C

U:

voltage, V

\( \overset{.}{V} \) :

volume flow rate, L/h

W ch :

channel width, m

W f :

channel separating wall thickness, m

We:

Weber number

x :

vapor quality

z:

distance from microchannel inlet (axial distance), m

δ :

thickness of diamond substrate, m

η :

fin efficiency

α:

heat transfer efficiency

γ:

latent heat, kJ/kg

μ:

dynamic viscosity, Pa·s

β:

the percentage of data within ±30%, %

ρ:

density, kg/m3

σ:

surface tension, N/m

φ:

thermal diffusion coefficient, m2/s

ε:

roughness, m

ci:

thermocouple labels at different locations

Cu:

copper

dia:

diamond

exp.:

experiment

f:

fluid

g:

gas

in:

inlet

l:

liquid

lo:

liquid only

m:

mean

nb:

nucleate boiling

out:

outlet

pred:

prediction

sat:

saturation

sp:

single phase

sub:

subcooled

w:

channel wall

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, People’s Republic of China

    Yanpei Huang, Jingquan Zhao, Xiaobin Shen & Yuandong Guo

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, People’s Republic of China

    Yanpei Huang, Qi Yang, Jianyin Miao, Weichun Fu & Qi Wu

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  1. Yanpei Huang
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  2. Qi Yang
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  3. Jingquan Zhao
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  4. Jianyin Miao
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Correspondence to Jianyin Miao.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Multiphase Fluid Dynamics in Microgravity

Guest Editors: Tatyana P. Lyubimova, Jian-Fu Zhao

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Huang, Y., Yang, Q., Zhao, J. et al. Experimental Study on Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Characteristics of Ammonia in Microchannels. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 32, 477–492 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-020-09786-z

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