Nucleate Pool Boiling Heat Transfer on a Micro-Pin-Finned Surface in Short-Term Microgravity

ABSTRACTNucleate boiling heat transfer of air-dissolved FC-72 on a micro-pin-finned surface was experimentally investigated in microgravity by utilizing the drop tower facility in Beijing. The dimensions of the silicon chips were 10 mm × 10 mm × 0.5 mm and on these, two kinds of micro-pin-fins with the dimensions of 30 × 30 × 60 μm3 and 50 × 50 × 120 μm3 (width × thickness × height, named PF30-60 and PF50-120) were fabricated by the dry etching technique. Nucleate pool boiling on a smooth surface was also studied under both Earth gravity and microgravity for comparison. In general, the micro-pin-fins showed better heat transfer performance when compared with a smooth surface, both under Earth gravity and microgravity. In microgravity, this is mainly due to the fact that bubbles generated on micro-pin-finned surface can depart from the heater surface continuously. For micro-pin-fins, the reduced-gravity critical heat flux was about two-thirds of that in the Earth gravity experiment, but almost three times ...