Leidenfrost transition temperature for stainless steel meshes

• The Leidenfrost temperature (LFT) for a polished stainless steel surface is 185 °C.
• The LFT was measure for 5 different stainless steel meshes.
• The LFT increased with increasing mesh size.
• A correlation was found between the open area of the mesh and the LFT.

On surfaces well above 100 °C water does not simply boil away. When there is a sufficient heat transfer between the solid and the liquid a continuous vapour layer instantaneous forms under a droplet of water and the drop sits on a cushion of vapour, highly mobile and insulated from the solid surface. This is known as the Leidenfrost effect and the temperature at which this occurs if known as the Leidenfrost transition temperature. In this report, an investigation of discontinuous surfaces, stainless steel meshes, have been tested to determine the effect of the woven material on the Leidenfrost phenomenon. It was found that with increasing the open area of the mesh pushes up the Leidenfrost temperature from 265 °C for an open area of 0.004 mm2 to 315 °C for open area of 0.100 mm2. This allows suppression of the Leidenfrost effect as it can be increase to over 300 °C from 185 °C for a stainless steel surface.

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