Abstract

Rapid development in miniaturization of electronic devices and corresponding high heat

flux dissipation requirements in many industrial applications demands more efficient
cooling solutions as compared to those provided by single phase convection heat transfer
mechanisms. The solutions involving phase change of the working fluid such as boiling,
evaporation, and condensation offer significantly much higher heat transfer rates as they
exploit the high latent heat of evaporation/condensation associated with the phase change
phenomenon. Among these, boiling finds wide range of applications as it exhibits
different regimes offering different heat transfer rates. A particular interest has been the
subject of nucleate pool boiling regime wherein, the maximum heat transfer rates are
attained. With the development in this field, it has been found that vapor bubble dynamics
and associated heat transfer rates are intricately coupled with the surface characteristics of
the heated substrates. Since then, there has been a surge in the boiling studies employing
nanofluids and nano/microscale engineered substrate surfaces to explore plausible ways
to further enhance the heat transfer rates through passive approach.
Suspended nanoparticles get deposited on the substrate surface randomly as
part of the boiling process leading to uncontrolled alteration of surface wettability,
while engineered nano/microscale surfaces alter the surface chemistry and/or surface
morphology in controlled manner leading to controlled alteration in surface wettability.
Nanofluids and nanostructured surfaces have been shown to alter pool boiling heat
transfer performance in the published literature. However, the fundamental mechanisms
responsible for altering the boiling performance, especially heat transfer coefficient, are
yet not clear primarily due to the fact that the majority of the boiling studies have been
conducted with multiple active nucleation sites. The mutual interactions among the vapor
bubbles make it challenging to identify and examine such mechanisms. In this direction,
it is essential to investigate the pool boiling phenomenon with single active nucleation site
in order to develop the fundamental insights into the dependence of the coupled bubble
dynamics and the associated heat transfer mechanisms on the surface characteristics.

vii
viii Abstract

In the current work, space and time resolved non-intrusive measurements have been
presented to understand the mechanisms through which nanofluids and nanostructured
surfaces influence the fundamental constituent sub-processes/parameters associated
with single bubble-based and/or isolated bubbles-based nucleate pool boiling regime.
Boiling experiments have been conducted in a specially designed chamber, wherein an
ITO-coated heater substrate has been used to induce single bubble nucleation. The
measurements have been performed simultaneously in a completely non-intrusive manner
using the combination of one of the refractive index-based imaging techniques namely
the rainbow schlieren deflectometry technique and Infrared thermography. Rainbow
schlieren-based videographic technique records the bubble dynamic parameters as well
as the thermal gradients field in the bulk liquid simultaneously, in qualitative as well
as quantitative terms, as against the conventional videographic technique, which records
only the bubble dynamic parameters. IR thermography maps the temperature and heat
flux distributions, underneath the growing vapor bubble, of the heated substrate surface.
Thus, these techniques facilitate in-situ mapping of the sub-processes/parameters which
include bubble growth and departure dynamics, microlayer formation and evaporation
dynamics, development of superheated layer on heater substrate, contact angle etc. In
order to employ IR thermography to measure temperature distribution underneath the
vapor bubble, initially employed borofloat glass substrate in conjuction with suitable data
reduction algorithm could not provide temperature data with sufficient accuracy due to its
low transmissivity in mid-IR spectrum. Hence, sapphire substrate with transmissivity >
85% has been employed to measure the temperature data of the substrate surface more
accurately. The focus of the present work has been to examine the modifications in the
aforementioned subprocesses/parameters due to addition of different dilute volumetric
concentrations of SiO2 nanoparticles to the base working fluid (DI water) with plain
substrate and different wettability (nano-coated) surfaces with water as the working fluid.
Three different volumetric concentrations of SiO2 -water nanofluids i.e. 0.0025%,
0.005% and 0.01% in conjunction with pure DI water have been employed as the
working fluids with plain heater substrate. In the context of altering surface wettability
in engineered way, researchers have developed/employed different wettability surfaces by
modifying the surface chemistry as well as the surface morphology or either one. The
boiling heat transfer on such surfaces gets influenced by not only the surface wettability
parameter but also the many other parameters such as thermo-physical properties of the
structuring material, roughness etc. In view of this, in the present work, surfaces with
different wettability have been fabricated by depositing same material i.e. SiO2 with
Abstract ix

moderately similar morphology using two different MEMS techniques i.e. sputtering and
chemical vapor deposition.
The schlieren-based measurements clearly revealed the plausible influence of
nanoparticles on the strength of temperature gradients prevailing in the bulk liquid.
As compared to the base fluid, the experiments with dilute nanofluids showed that
the suspended nanoparticles tend to diffuse (homogenize) the strength of temperature
gradients, both in the vicinity of the heated substrate and in the superheated liquid
layer enveloping the vapor bubble. Results on bubble dynamic parameters revealed that
these parameters show more variability and assume skewed normal distribution in the
case of nanofluids whereas water experiments showed insignifcant variations in these
parameters. Of the significant changes observed, the bubble departure diameter reduced,
growth time reduced and wait time increased with increasing concentration of nanofluids.
Heat partitioning analysis based on temperature field retrieved from the schlieren images
showed that time-averaged values of natural convection and evaporative heat transfer rates
associated with single bubble-based boiling decrease in the presence of dispersed silica
nanoparticles.
The IR-based measurements indicated towards the ceasing of microlayer underneath
the vapor bubble during water-based experiments and the prominent existence of
microlayer during nanofluids-based experiments on the original hydrophobic surface.
A complete change in bubble base evaporation mechanism from microlayer to pure
contact line evaporation was observed on hydrophobic surface as one shifts from
nanofluids to water. Though it is widely known that suspended nanoparticles get
deposit randomly and irregularly on substrate surface during boiling, in the present work,
optical characterization of substrate surfaces obtained at the end of the nanofluids-based
experiments revealed a distinct circular porous structure of the deposited nanoparticles
at the nucleation site and almost negligible deposition away from it for all nanofluid
concentrations. Based on the structure of the deposited layer and the IR measurements
(temperature and heat flux distributions at the nucleation site), the underlying mechanisms
reponsible for imparting a definite structure to the deposited layer were discussed
in details. The heat transfer partitioning analysis performed at microscopic levels
using IR measurements showed that the overall heat transfer decreases with increasing
concentration of nanofluids. However, the microlayer evaporation in the case of
nanofluids-based experiments was found to result in higher heat transfer coefficient
than that obtained with pure contact line evaporation in the case of pure water
experiments on hydrophobic surface. The observed changes in the bubble growth
dynamics and the bubble base evaporation mechanism for nanofluids compared to water
x Abstract

have been attributed to the modification of the substrate surface properties, such as
surface wettability, surface capillarity and increased heat resistance, caused due to the
micro-meter thick nanoparticles deposited layer underneath the vapor bubble.
The deposition of the nanoparticles on the boiling substrate as part of the
nanofluids-based boiling process is an inherently random and uncontrolled process, which
restricts any precise control on surface wettability. In this direction, experiments have
also been conducted with nanostructured surfaces with engineered surface wettability.
These engineered surfaces have been fabricated through MEMS-based sputtering and
chemical vapor deposition techniques. Results on nanostructured surfaces with different
wettability showed that overall boiling performance increases with enhancing surface
wettability for the range of heat flux wherein the bubble nucleation was active on all
the surfaces. Temperature and heat flux distributions, retrieved from IR thermography,
revealed that bubble base evaporation mechanism undergoes relatively fast transition from
microlayer to pure contact line evaporation during bubble growth as one reduces the
surface wettability. The heat transfer coefficients and its rates associated with microlayer
evaporation were found to be increasing with enhancing surface wettability. The
corresponding underlying mechanisms have been identified and discussed. The observed
enhancement in the overall boiling performance has been attributed to the modified
bubble dynamics and bubble base evaporation mechanisms. On the basis of comparison
between results on nanofluids and results on nano-coated surfaces, it was found that
surface capillary wicking effect significantly influences heat transfer from bubble base
evaporation mechanism by delaying/suppressing its transition from microlayer to pure
contact line evaporation during bubble growth in the case of nanofluids. Based on the
video-graphic and corresponding IR thermo-graphic images, different regimes of bubble
interactions and their dependence on the distance between the nucleation sites have been
identified and their effect on heat transfer performance has been discussed.
To the best of our knowledge, the work reported is first experimental work to
investigate nanofluids-based pool boiling with single natural active nucleation site on
substrate surface in a purely non-intrusive manner using combination of rainbow schlieren
imaging technique and IR thermography. With these measurements, new insights have
been developed such as suspended nanoparticles do affect bubble dynamics by smearing
out thermal gradients in the bulk liquid, the mechanisms responsible for nanoparticles
deposition during boiling have been shown experimentally, microscopic features of
well-patterned structure of nanoparticles deposition associated with single vapor bubble
have been shown experimentally very first time etc. Moreover, this is a first study
to provide experimental evidence and its dynamics of pure contact line evaporation
Abstract xi

on hydrophobic surfaces using IR thermography as against its deduction based on

normal videographic technique in open literature. Similarly the open literature lack
in providing details of bubble base evaporation mechanisms of nanofluids-based vapor
bubble. The present work provided these intricate spatio-temporal details of bubble
base evaporation mechanisms in qualitative as well as quantitative terms. As far as
nano-coated surrfaces with varying wettability are concerned, this is again one of the
first studies to fundamentally investigate effect of surface wettability on bubble base
evaporation mechanisms. Surface capillary-driven flows have been shown to affect
bubble base evaporation mechanisms in addition to surface wettability. Furthermore, the
present work attempted to explain bubble interaction mechanisms using highly-resolved
IR measurements and their influence on bubble base evaporation mechanisms.
Keywords: Nucleate pool boiling, Nanofluids, Nanostructured surfaces of different
wettability, Single bubble dynamics, Heat transfer partitioning, Contact line/microlayer
evaporation dynamics, Rainbow schlieren deflectometry, IR thermography.
xii Abstract