Boiling heat transfer from a horizontal flat plate in a pool of liquid hydrogen

Heat transfer from a flat plate facing upward immersed in a liquid hydrogen pool was measured for the pressures from atmospheric to 1.1 MPa. The flat plate heater used was 10 mm in width, 100 mm in length and 0.1 mm in thickness. Critical heat fluxes (CHFs) in saturated boiling increased with the increase in pressure up to around 0.3 MPa and then decreased with further pressure increase. The CHFs under subcooled condition at each pressure increased with the increase in sub-cooling. Discussions were made on the experimental results by comparing with those of the other cryogenic liquids and also the Kutateladze’s equations under saturated and subcooled conditions. The experimental CHFs were much smaller than the Kutateladze’s equation for higher pressure up to critical. The heater surface temperature was found to reach the critical temperature before the occurrence of hydrodynamic instability and jump to the film boiling regime at the lower heat flux in the higher pressure range. It was suggested that the CHFs are determined not by the heat flux but by the temperature in the higher pressure range.