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Gravity-Independent Oscillate Boiling

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Abstract

Heat transfer in nucleate boiling relies on the detachment and rise of the boiling bubble, in which gravity plays the dominant role. Previous studies showed that in the absence of gravity, the bubble fails to rise, causing the dryout of the heater and significantly reducing the thermal efficiency of nucleate boiling. Recently, a new boiling regime termed oscillate boiling was discovered. By localizing thermal energy as high as 50 mW into an area as small as 15 × 15μm2, a boiling bubble is formed and oscillate at high frequency while remaining pinned at the heating spot. This regime was proposed to be independent of buoyancy as its operation does not involves the detachment and rise of the boiling bubble. To test this hypothesis, we compared experimental observations of oscillate boiling in low gravity, normal gravity and hyper gravity. The results support the hypothesis and promote its potential for outer-space heat transfer application.

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Acknowledgements

We thank ESA for organizing the 67th parabola flight campaign and Danail Obreschkow for his great help and company during the campaign. The project received financial support from the Ministry of Education, Singapore (Tier 1 160 grant RG90/15), the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University and the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 513234).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Division of Physics and Applied Physics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637371, Singapore

    Dang Minh Nguyen & Claus-Dieter Ohl

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Outi Supponen

  3. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Jianmin Miao

  4. Laboratory for Hydraulic Machines, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, CH 1007, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Mohamed Farhat

  5. Otto-von-Guericke University, Institute for Physics, Magdeburg, 39106, Germany

    Claus-Dieter Ohl

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  1. Dang Minh Nguyen
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  2. Outi Supponen
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  3. Jianmin Miao
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  4. Mohamed Farhat
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  5. Claus-Dieter Ohl
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Correspondence to Dang Minh Nguyen.

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Nguyen, D.M., Supponen, O., Miao, J. et al. Gravity-Independent Oscillate Boiling. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 31, 767–773 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-019-09708-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-019-09708-8

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