Open Access

ARTICLE

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF RECENT INVESTIGATIONS ON FLOW PATTERN AND HEAT TRANSFER DURING FLOW BOILING IN MICRO-CHANNELS

Sira Saisorn^a,b, Somchai Wongwises^b,c,*

a King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang Chumphon Campus Chumphon 86160, Thailand
b Fluid Mechanics, Thermal Engineering and Multiphase Flow Research Lab. (FUTURE)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
c The Academy of Science, The Royal Institute of Thailand, Sanam Suea Pa, Dusit, Bangkok 10300, Thailand

* Corresponding Author: E-mail:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2012, 3(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.v3.1.3006

Abstract

A summary of recent research on flow boiling in micro-channels is provided in this article. This review aims to survey and identify new findings arising in this important area, which may contribute to optimum design and process control of high performance miniature devices comprising extremely small channels. Several criteria for defining a micro-channel are presented at first and the recent works on micro-scale flow boiling are subsequently described into two parts including flow visualization and two-phase heat transfer. The results obtained from a number of p revious studies show that the flow behaviours and heat transfer mechanisms in micro-channels deviate significantly from those in ordinarily sized channels. Future research with numerous aspects of flow boiling phenomena necessary to answer the fundamental questions is still required.

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Keywords

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