Confined jet impingement of liquid nitrogen onto different heat transfer surfaces

Jet impingement of liquid nitrogen owns many applications in the cryogenic cooling aspects, such as, cooling of high-power chips in the electronic devices and cryoprobes in the cryosurgery. In the present study, we systematically investigated the confined jet impingement of liquid nitrogen from a tube of about 2.0 mm in diameter onto the heat transfer surfaces of about 5.0 mm in basement diameter with different heat transfer surface geometries and conditions, i.e., flat surface, hemispherical surface and flat surface with a needle. The effects of many influential factors, such as, the geometry of the heat transfer surface, jet velocity, distance between the nozzle exit and heat transfer surface, heat transfer surface condition, and some other, on the heat transfer were investigated. The heat transfer correlations were also proposed by using the experimental data, and it was found that the heat transfer mechanism of liquid impingement in the confined space was dominated by the convective evaporation rather than the nucleate boiling in the present case. The critical heat flux (CHF) of the confined jet impingement was measured and the visualization of the corresponding flow patterns of the confined jet impingement of liquid nitrogen was also conducted simultaneously to understand the heat transfer phenomena. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.