Evaporation and flow dynamics of thin, shear-driven liquid films in microgap channels

Thin and ultra-thin shear-driven liquid films in a narrow channel are a promising candidate for the thermal management of advanced semiconductor devices in earth and space applications. Such flows experience complex, and as yet poorly understood, two-phase flow phenomena requiring significant advances in fundamental research before they could be broadly applied. This paper focuses on the results obtained in experiments with locally heated shear-driven liquid films in a flat mini-channel. A detailed map of the flow sub-regimes in a shear-driven liquid film flow of water and FC-72 have been obtained for a 2 mm channel operating at room temperature. While the water film can be smooth under certain liquid/gas flow rates, the surface of an intensively evaporating film of FC-72 is always distorted by a pattern of waves and structures. It was found, that when heated the shear-driven liquid films are less likely to rupture than gravity-driven liquid films. For shear-driven water films the critical heat flux was found of up to 10 times higher than that for a falling film, which makes shear-driven films (annular or stratified two-phase flows) more suitable for cooling applications than falling liquid films.