An experimental study on convective boiling heat transfer in micro heat exchangers

Attributed to its high heat transfer coefficient, evaporating cooling involving the use of micro heat exchangers is considered a possible thermal management solution for cooling of high heat flux electronic devices. The desire to develop high-performance micro heat exchangers operating in the evaporation regime provides a major motivation for the present work. Methanol evaporated in two micro heat exchangers with chevron flow passages and straight flow passages respectively were tested in the present study. The test results show that the heat transfer coefficient increased with increasing flow rate in both chevron and straight flow passages micro heat exchangers. However, the effect of vapor quality on the heat transfer coefficient in the straight passages heat exchanger is in adverse to that in the chevron passages heat exchanger. The heat transfer coefficient increased with increasing vapor quality in the chevron passages heat exchanger but decreased in the straight passages heat exchanger. The flow visualization through transparent cover heat exchangers showed that the liquid film inside channel is partially dry out in the straight passages heat exchanger. The dryout portion area increased with increasing heating rate and exit vapor quality. This degraded the average heat transfer performance for evaporation in the straight passages heat exchanger. Because of the surface tension effect, the liquid film was dragged at the intersection corner of the upper and lower plate chevron passages. There is no significant dryout portion in the chevron passages heat exchanger. The relation of vapor quality with heat transfer performance in chevron passages heat exchanger is therefore similar to the boiling in a single channel prior to critical heat flux condition.