Experimental study of the effects of structured surface geometry on water spray cooling performance in non-boiling regime

Experiments were conducted to study the effects of enhanced surfaces on heat transfer performance during water spray cooling in non-boiling regime. The surface enhancement is straight fin. The structures were machined on the top surface of heated copper blocks with a cross-sectional area of 10 mm×10 mm. The spray was performed using Unijet full cone nozzles with a volumetric flux of 0.044–0.053 m³/(m²·s) and a nozzle height of 17 mm. It is found that the heat transfer is obviously enhanced for straight fin surfaces relative to the flat surface. However, the increment decreases as the fin height increases. For flat surface and enhanced surfaces with a fin height of 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm, as the coolant flux increases, the heat flux increases as well. However, for finned surface with a height of 0.4 mm, the heat flux is not sensitive to the coolant volumetric flux. Changed film thickness and the form of water/surface interaction due to an enhanced surface structure (different fin height) are the main reasons for changing of the local heat transfer coefficient.