Subcooled flow boiling heat transfer of dilute alumina, zinc oxide, and diamond nanofluids at atmospheric pressure

A nanofluid is a colloidal suspension of nano-scale particles in water, or other base fluids. Previous pool boiling studies have shown that nanofluids can improve the critical heat flux (CHF) by as much as 200%. In a previous paper, we reported on subcooled flow boiling CHF experiments with low concentrations of alumina, zinc oxide, and diamond nanoparticles in water (≤0.1% by volume) at atmospheric pressure, which revealed a substantial CHF enhancement (∼40–50%) at the highest mass flux (G = 2500 kg/m2 s) and concentration (0.1 vol.%) for all nanoparticle materials (Kim et al., 2009). In this paper, we focus on the flow boiling heat transfer coefficient data collected in the same tests. It was found that for comparable test conditions the values of the nanofluid and water heat transfer coefficient are similar (within ±20%). The heat transfer coefficient increased with mass flux and heat flux for water and nanofluids alike, as expected in flow boiling. A confocal microscopy-based examination of the test section revealed that nanoparticle deposition on the boiling surface occurred during nanofluid boiling. Such deposition changes the number of micro-cavities on the surface, but also changes the surface wettability. A simple model was used to estimate the ensuing nucleation site density changes, but no definitive correlation between the nucleation site density and the heat transfer coefficient data could be found.