Boiling flow through diverging microchannel

An experimental study of flow boiling through diverging microchannel has been carried out in this work, with the aim of understanding boiling in non-uniform cross-section microchannel. Diverging microchannel of 4° of divergence angle and 146 μm hydraulic diameter (calculated at mid-length) has been employed for the present study with deionised water as working fluid. Effect of mass flux (118–1182 kg/m²-s) and heat flux (1.6–19.2 W/cm²) on single and two-phase pressure drop and average heat transfer coefficient has been studied. Concurrently, flow visualization is carried out to document the various flow regimes and to correlate the pressure drop and average heat transfer coefficient to the underlying flow regime. Four flow regimes have been identified from the measurements: bubbly, slug, slug–annular and periodic dry-out/ rewetting. Variation of pressure drop with heat flux shows one maxima which corresponds to transition from bubbly to slug flow. It is shown that significantly large heat transfer coefficient (up to 107 kW/m²-K) can be attained for such systems, for small pressure drop penalty and with good flow stability.