NUCLEATE BOILING HEAT TRANSFER

摘要

Nucleate boiling heat transfer has been intensely studied during the last 70 years. However boiling remains a science to be understood and equated. In other words, using the definition given by Boulding [2], it is an "insecure science". It would be pretentious of the part of the author to explore all the nuances that the title of the paper suggests in a single conference paper. Instead the paper will focus on one interesting aspect such as the effect of the surface microstructure on nucleate boiling heat transfer. A summary of a chronological literature survey is done followed by an analysis of the results of an experimental investigation of boiling on tubes of different materials and surface roughness. The effect of the surface roughness is performed through data from the boiling of refrigerants R-134a and R-123, medium and low pressure refrigerants, respectively. In order to investigate the extent to which the surface roughness affects boiling heat transfer, very rough surfaces (4.6 (mu)m and 10.5 (mu)m) have been tested. Though most of the data confirm previous literature trends, the very rough surfaces present a peculiar behaviour with respect to that of the smoother surfaces (Ra<3.0 (mu)m).