Heat transfer in two-component internal mist cooling: Part I. Experimental investigation

An experimental investigation was conducted to examine steady, internal, nozzle-generated, gas/liquid mist cooling in vertical channels. The ideal primary cooling mechanism in this situation is surface evaporation of an ultra-thin, subcooled liquid film that forms on the heated surface. The aim was to quantify the effects of various operating and design parameters on the cooling effectiveness. Parameters tested included the liquid atomization nozzle design, inlet flow condition (liquid mass fraction; carrier gas velocity, temperature and humidity; liquid temperature; liquid droplet size distribution; and gas/liquid combination), channel characteristics (cross-section geometry, length and surface wettability), and flow direction. Interest in this research has been motivated by the need for a highly efficient cooling mechanism in high-power lasers for inertial fusion reactor applications. A fully instrumented experimental test facility that included three cylindrical and two rectangular electrically heated test sections with different cross-sections and unheated entry lengths was used. The channel hydraulic diameters covered the range 16-26.7 mm, and the heated length-to-hydraulic-diameter ratio varied in the range from 23.3 to 51. Water was used as the mist liquid, with air or helium as the carrier gas. Three types of mist generating nozzles with significantly different spray characteristics were used. Local heat transfer coefficients, defined based on the temperature difference between the heated surface and the bulk gas, were obtained along the channels for a wide range of operating conditions. The data indicate that mist cooling can increase the heat transfer coefficient by more than an order of magnitude compared to forced convection using only the carrier gas.