Sub-atmospheric pressure pool boiling of water on a screen laminate-enhanced extended surface

Pool boiling experiments are conducted to investigate the heat transfer performance of screen laminate-enhanced extended surfaces in water at reduced pressures. Screen laminations of varying pore hydraulic diameter and specific surface area fine wire screen are bonded to an extended surface (fin). The fins have a 1 cm² base cross section area, a 5 deg taper with heights of 1 cm and 2/3 cm. Pool temperatures are held at the saturation temperature for water at pressures of 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 and 1.0 atm. Boiling performance of a vertical and horizontal fin orientation is investigated. The 4 layer screen laminate enhanced fin with a 10K superheat sustains base heat fluxes of up to 140 W/cm² at 1.0 atm, and up to 132 W/cm² at 0.2 atm. These extended surfaces outperform screen laminates enhanced plane surface by up to 4 fold. A reduction in saturation pressure reduces the boiling performance for all laminates. Vertically oriented fins outperform horizontal fins.