Submerged Jet Impingement Boiling of Water Under Subatmospheric Conditions

An experimental study of jet impingement boiling is presented for water under saturated and subcooled conditions. Unique to this study is the documentation of boiling curves of a submerged water jet under subatmospheric conditions. Data are reported at a fixed nondimensional nozzle-to-surface distance of H/d_j = 6 and for a fixed surface-to-nozzle diameter ratio, d_surf/d_j, of 23.8. Saturated jet impingement experiments are performed at three subatmospheric pool pressures of 0.176 bar, 0.276 bar, and 0.478 bar with corresponding saturation temperatures of 57.3 °C, 67.2 °C, and 80.2 °C. At each pressure, jet impingement boiling at varying Reynolds numbers are characterized and compared with pool boiling heat transfer. The effect of surface roughness and fluid subcooling is studied at the lowest pressure of 0.176 bar. Boiling curves indicate a strong dependence of heat flux on jet Reynolds number in the partially developed nucleate boiling region but only a weak dependence in the fully developed nucleate boiling region. At a fixed wall superheat, fluid subcooling is found to shift the boiling curve to the left thereby enhancing heat transfer performance. Critical heat flux is found to increase with increases in pressure, surface roughness, and Reynolds number.