Tm. Adams et al., Enhancement of liquid forced convection heat transfer in microchannels dueto the release of dissolved noncondensables, INT J HEAT, 42(19), 1999, pp. 3563-3573
An experimental investigation addressing the effect of the release of disso
lved noncondensables on the heat transfer in a long, heated microchannel su
bject to subcooled liquid forced convection was conducted. The convection h
eat transfer coefficients near the exit of a copper microchannel with 0.76
mm inner diameter and 16 cm heated length, subject to forced-flow cooling b
y subcooled water, were measured. The range of experimental parameters were
: wall heat flux = 0.5-2.5 MW/m(2); liquid velocity = 2.07 to 8.53 m/s; cha
nnel exit pressure = 5.9 bar. Experiments were performed with degassed wate
r and water saturated with air.
The convection heat transfer coefficients obtained with degassed water were
systematically under predicted by the widely-used Dittus-Boelter correlati
on for turbulent pipe flow. The presence of dissolved air in water could in
crease the heat transfer coefficients by as much as 17%, despite the fact t
hat the maximum increase in the coolant velocity due to the noncondensable
gas release was only a few percent. The heat transfer enhancement increased
with increasing the heat flux and decreasing the liquid velocity. (C) 1999
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