Enhancement of flow boiling heat transfer in a phase separation structure under electric field

In this work, the effect of minichannel heat exchanger with phase-separation structure on flow boiling heat transfer of glycerol-water solution was investigate. Three different counterflow minichannel heat sink configurations was processed by ultrafast laser technology, and glycerol-water mixed solution with mass fraction of 30% was prepared as the experimental working fluid. The results show that the phase separation structure has a definite effect on flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of glycerol-water solution in the minichannel. It was found that the synergistic effect of electric field and phase separation structure further enhanced the heat transfer performance of glycerol-water solution in the minichannel, and the maximum enhanced heat transfer factor of 1.63 was obtained. Meanwhile, the maximum temperature difference at the wall surface of heat exchangers with phase-separated structures in this study is reduced by 11.25% (+/-) 30.86% compared with plain heat exchanger. In addition, the flow instability of the heat sink with phase-separated structure is considerably improved. Furthermore, a new prediction model was proposed to take into account the effect of the minichannel phaseseparation structure on heat transfer. The predicted MAEs of the modified prediction model for plain heat exchanger PSMC-1 and phase-separation structure heat exchangers PSMC-2 and PSMC-3 are 15.16%, 15.32% and 16.34% respectively.