Enhanced heat transfer with jet impingement on structured-porous surfaces

A new heat transfer method, which combines the merits of liquid jet impingement heat transfer with metallic porous surfaces, is proposed. The porous surface was made by sintering a single layer or multiple layers of copper wire mesh screen to a plain copper base heat transfer surface. Experiments were conducted with a 2.0-mm diameter circular water jet impinging onto a 6.35-mm diameter circular porous surface. The effects of jet subcooling, flow rates, and porous layer thickness on jet impingement heat transfer performance were explored under atmospheric pressure. The results show that increased subcooling improves heat transfer performance, and that flow rate has an insignificant effect on heat transfer performance when boiling is fully established. The effect of porous layer thickness depends on the specific working condition. With a four layer porous surface, a heat flux of 720 W/cm² was reached at a wall superheat of 12.4 K.