Review of flow boiling heat transfer under microgravity conditions

Abstract

Flow boiling heat transfer (FBHT) allows high performance heat transfer due to latent heat transportation and its use is therefore important to reduce size and weight of space platforms and satellites. Its knowledge is also important for the safe operation of existing single-phase systems in case of accidental increase of heat generation rate. The number of existing researches on flow boiling in reduced gravity is very small due to both larger heat loads and available room in a 0-g apparatus for experiments, and also the lack of coherence in existing data. This paper will summarise the results of the few research carried out on FBHT in microgravity, with special emphasis to the recent research carried out at ENEA, in the frame of an ESA (European Space Agency) project.

Keywords:

• Flow boiling
• microgravity
• flow visualisation
• heat transfer

Additional information

Notes on contributors

G P Celata

Gian Piero Celata is the Director of the Institute of Thermal-Fluid Dynamics of ENEA, the Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment in Rome. His main field of interest is heat transfer and two-phase flow. In the past he was involved in research on counter-current flow limitation, two-phase critical flow, critical heat flux (under steady and transient conditions) for fission nuclear reactors and fusion reactors (high heat flux components), direct contact condensation, heat pipes. His current involvement in research concerns with two-phase critical flows in safety valves, bubbly flow, compact heat exchangers for the refrigeration industry, microscale heat transfer, flow boiling in microgravity, direct contact heat transfer, high temperature wall cooling, heat pipes for space applications.

Gian has been a lecturer on boiling heat transfer in many advanced schools and courses in Italy and abroad, and is frequently asked to give seminars at universities in Italy and abroad. He is the author of some 150 papers published in international journals and/or presented at international conferences, and has given more than 15 invited lectures at international conferences. Gian is also the editor of more than 10 conference proceedings and author of three chapters in the Handbook of Phase Change: Boiling & Condensation (published by Taylor & Francis and edited by S.G. Kandlikar). He is editor of HEDU Chapter on Microscale Heat Transfer, and of the book “Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Microchannels”, both published by Begell House. He is also the editor of the HEDU, Heat Exchanger Design Update, published by Begell House.