ALBERT

Description: A study is conducted on high heat-flux pool boiling of pentane on micro-configured composite surfaces. The boiling surfaces are copper-graphite (Cu-Gr) and aluminum-graphite (Al-Gr) composites with a fiber volume concentration of 50%. The micro-graphite fibers embedded in the matrix contribute to a substantial enhancement in boiling heat-transfer performance. Correlation equations are obtained for both the isolated and coalesced bubble regimes, utilizing a mathematical model based on a metal-graphite, two-tier configuration with the aid of experimental data. A new model to predict the critical heat flux (CHF) on the composites is proposed to explain the fundamental aspects of the boiling phenomena. Three different factors affecting the CHF are considered in the model. Two of them are expected to become the main agents driving vapor volume detachment under microgravity conditions, using the metal-graphite composite surfaces as the heating surface and using liquids with an unusual Marangoni effect as the working fluid.

Description: The spreading of a liquid on a solid surface is important for various practical processes, and contact-angle measurements provide an elegant method to characterize the interfacial properties of the liquid with the solid substrates. The complex physical processes occurring when a liquid contacts a solid play an important role in determining the performance of chemical processes and materials. Applications for these processes are in printing, coating, gluing, textile dyeing, and adhesives and in the pharmaceutical industry, biomedical research, adhesives, flat panel display manufacturing, surfactant chemistry, and thermal engineering.

Description: The spreading of an evaporating liquid on a solid surface occurs in many practical processes and is of importance in a number of practical situations such as painting, textile dyeing, coating, gluing, and thermal engineering. Typical processes involving heat transfer where the contact angle plays an important role are film cooling, boiling, and the heat transfer through heat pipes. The biological phenomenon of cell spreading also is analogous to a drop spreading (ref. 1). In the study of spreading, the dynamic contact angle describes the interfacial properties on solid substrates and, therefore, has been studied by physicists and fluid mechanics investigators. The dynamic contact angle of a spreading nonvolatile liquid drop provides a simple tool in the study of the free-boundary problem, but the study of the spreading of a volatile liquid drop is of more practical interest because the evaporation of common liquids is inevitable in practical processes. The most common method to measure the contact angle, the contact radius, and the height of a sessile drop on a solid surface is to view the drop from its edge through an optical microscope. However, this method gives only local information in the view direction. Zhang and Yang (ref. 2) developed a laser shadowgraphy method to investigate the evaporation of sessile drop on a glass plate. As described here, Zhang and Chao (refs. 3 and 4) improved the method and suggested a new optical arrangement to measure the dynamic contact angle and the instant evaporation rate of a sessile drop with much higher accuracy (less than 1 percent). With this method, any fluid motion in the evaporating drop can be visualized through shadowgraphy without using a tracer, which often affects the field under investigation.

Description: Boiling is known to be a very efficient mode of heat transfer, and as such, it is employed in component cooling and in various energy-conversion systems. In space, boiling heat transfer may be used in thermal management, fluid handling and control, power systems, and on-orbit storage and supply systems for cryogenic propellants and life-support fluids. Recent interest in the exploration of Mars and other planets and in the concept of in situ resource utilization on the Martian and Lunar surfaces highlights the need to understand how gravity levels varying from the Earth's gravity to microgravity (1g = or 〉 g/g(sub e) = or 〉 10(exp -6)g) affect boiling heat transfer. Because of the complex nature of the boiling process, no generalized prediction or procedure has been developed to describe the boiling heat transfer coefficient, particularly at reduced gravity levels. Recently, Professor Vijay K. Dhir of the University of California at Los Angeles proposed a novel building-block approach to investigate the boiling phenomena in low-gravity to microgravity environments. This approach experimentally investigates the complete process of bubble inception, growth, and departure for single bubbles formed at a well-defined and controllable nucleation site. Principal investigator Professor Vijay K. Dhir, with support from researchers from the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, is performing a series of pool boiling experiments in the low-gravity environments of the KC 135 microgravity aircraft s parabolic flight to investigate the inception, growth, departure, and merger of bubbles from single- and multiple-nucleation sites as a function of the wall superheat and the liquid subcooling. Silicon wafers with single and multiple cavities of known characteristics are being used as test surfaces. Water and PF5060 (an inert liquid) were chosen as test liquids so that the role of surface wettability and the magnitude of the effect of interfacial tension on boiling in reduced gravity can be investigated.

Description: The properties of molten semiconductors are good indicators for material structure transformation and hysteresis under temperature variations. Viscosity, as one of the most important properties, is difficult to measure because of high temperature, high pressure, and vapor toxicity of melts. Recently, a novel method was developed by applying a rotating magnetic field to the melt sealed in a suspended quartz ampoule, and measuring the transient torque exerted by rotating melt flow on the ampoule wall. The method was designed to measure viscosity in short time period, which is essential for evaluating temperature hysteresis. This paper compares the theoretical prediction of melt flow and ampoule oscillation with the experimental data. A theoretical model was established and the coupled fluid flow and ampoule torsional vibration equations were solved numerically. The simulation results showed a good agreement with experimental data. The results also showed that both electrical conductivity and viscosity could be calculated by fitting the theoretical results to the experimental data. The transient velocity of the melt caused by the rotating magnetic field was found reach equilibrium in about half a minute, and the viscosity of melt could be calculated from the altitude of oscillation. This would allow the measurement of viscosity in a minute or so, in contrast to the existing oscillation cup method, which requires about an hour for one measurement.

Description: This paper presents two means for enhancing nucleate boiling and critical heat flux under microgravity conditions: using micro-configured metal-graphite composites as the boiling surface and dilute aqueous solutions of long-chain alcohols as the working fluid. In the former, thermocapillary force induced by temperature difference between the graphite-fiber tips and the metal matrix plays an important role in bubble detachment. Thus boiling-heat transfer performance does not deteriorate in a reduced-gravity environment. In the latter cases, the surface tension-temperature gradient of the long-chain alcohol solutions turns positive as the temperature exceeds a certain value. Consequently, the Marangoni effect does not impede, but rather aids in bubble departure from the heating surface. This feature is most favorable in microgravity. As a result, the bubble size of departure is substantially reduced at higher frequencies. Based on the existing experimental data, and a two-tier theoretical model, correlation formulas are derived for nucleate boiling on the copper-graphite and aluminum-graphite composite surfaces, in both the isolated and coalesced bubble regimes. In addition, performance equations for nucleate boiling and critical heat flux in dilute aqueous solutions of long-chain alcohols are obtained.

Description: Nucleate boiling, especially near the critical heat flux (CHF), can provide excellent economy along with high efficiency of heat transfer. However, the performance of nucleate boiling may deteriorate in a reduced gravity environment and the nucleate boiling usually has a potentially dangerous characteristic in CHF regime. That is, any slight overload can result in burnout of the boiling surface because the heat transfer will suddenly move into the film-boiling regime. Therefore, enhancement of nucleate boiling heat transfer becomes more important in reduced gravity environments. Enhancing nucleate boiling and critical heat flux can be reached using micro-configured metal-graphite composites as the boiling surface. Thermocapillary force induced by temperature difference between the graphite-fiber tips and the metal matrix, which is independent of gravity, will play an important role in bubble detachment. Thus boiling heat transfer performance does not deteriorate in a reduced-gravity environment. Based on the existing experimental data, and a two-tier theoretical model, correlation formulas are derived for nucleate boiling on the copper-graphite and aluminum-graphite composite surfaces, in both the isolated and coalesced bubble regimes. Experimental studies were performed on nucleate pool boiling of pentane on cooper-graphite (Cu-Gr) and aluminum-graphite (Al-Gr) composite surfaces with various fiber volume concentrations for heat fluxes up to 35 W per square centimeter. It is revealed that a significant enhancement in boiling heat transfer performance on the composite surfaces is achieved, due to the presence of micro-graphite fibers embedded in the matrix. The onset of nucleate boiling (the isolated bubble regime) occurs at wall superheat of about 10 C for the Cu-Gr surface and 15 C for the Al-Gr surface, much lower than their respective pure metal surfaces. Transition from an isolated bubble regime to a coalesced bubble regime in boiling occurs at a superheat of about 14 C on Cu-Gr surface and 19 C on Al-Gr surface.

Description: The study examined the effect of natural convection in applying the modified laser flash method to measure thermal properties of semiconductor melts. Common laser flash method uses a laser pulse to heat one side of a thin circular sample and measures the temperature response of the other side. Thermal diffusivity can be calculations based on a heat conduction analysis. For semiconductor melt, the sample is contained in a specially designed quartz cell with optical windows on both sides. When laser heats the vertical melt surface, the resulting natural convection can introduce errors in calculation based on heat conduction model alone. The effect of natural convection was studied by CFD simulations with experimental verification by temperature measurement. The CFD results indicated that natural convection would decrease the time needed for the rear side to reach its peak temperature, and also decrease the peak temperature slightly in our experimental configuration. Using the experimental data, the calculation using only heat conduction model resulted in a thermal diffusivity value is about 7.7% lower than that from the model with natural convection. Specific heat capacity was about the same, and the difference is within 1.6%, regardless of heat transfer models.

Description: The performance of a heat pipe system is greatly improved by the use of a dilute aqueous solution of about 0.0005 and about 0.005 moles per liter of a long chain alcohol as the working fluid. The surface tension-temperature gradient of the long-chain alcohol solutions turns positive as the temperature exceeds a certain value, for example about 40.degree. C. for n-heptanol solutions. Consequently, the Marangoni effect does not impede, but rather aids in bubble departure from the heating surface. Thus, the bubble size at departure is substantially reduced at higher frequencies and, therefore, increases the boiling limit of heat pipes. This feature is useful in microgravity conditions. In addition to microgravity applications, the heat pipe system may be used for commercial, residential and vehicular air conditioning systems, micro heat pipes for electronic devices, refrigeration and heat exchangers, and chemistry and cryogenics.

Description: As one of the basic elements of the shadowgraphy optical system, the image of the far field from the droplet implicates plentiful information on the droplet profile. An analysis of caustics by wave theory shows that a droplet with a cylindrically symmetric Gaussian-hill-type profile produces a circular directional caustic in far field, which arises from the singularities (inflection line on the surface). The sessile liquid droplets, which profiles are restricted by surface tension, usually have a 'protruding foot' where the surface inflects. Simple geometrical optics indicates that the circular caustic stemming from the surface inflection at the protruding-foot takes the shape of the outmost ring on the image of the far field. It is the diameter of the outmost ring that is used as one of the key parameters in the measurements of contact angle through the laser shadowgraphic method. Different surface characteristics of the droplets produce different type of caustics, and therefore, the shape of the caustics can be used to determine the surface property of the sessile droplets. The present paper describes the measurement method of contact angIe using the circular caustics and the estimation of the protruding-foot height through the caustic interference.