Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

A review of the capabilities of high heat flux removal by porous

materials, microchannels and spray cooling techniques
Przemysław Smakulski, Sławomir Pietrowicz ⇑
Department of Thermodynamics, Theory of Machines and Thermal Systems, Faculty of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Wrocław University of Science and Technology,
Wybrzez_ e Wyspiańskiego 27 St., 50-370 Wrocław, Poland

h i g h l i g h t s

Three direct cooling techniques are presented and compared in detail.

The thermal and flow parameters which have influence on performances are investigated.

The spray cooling technique is characterized by the most promising thermal performances.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Most advanced, high power technologies require a large amount of heat to be dissipated from the limited
Received 5 January 2016 surface area or space. Solutions to such problems are vital, among others, in the field of computer micro-
Revised 24 April 2016 chips, where promising designs of future high power processing components can reach heat fluxes up to
Accepted 16 May 2016
500 W cm2 in the background or even 1000 W cm2 at the hot-spots. Such high requirements can be sat-
Available online 19 May 2016
isfied by so-called Direct Cooling Techniques, which are heat removal techniques that apply porous media,
microchannel heat sinks and spray cooling. The paper presents an exhaustive comparison of the afore-
Keywords:
mentioned techniques with respect to the media type, operating fluids and flow character, maximal
Porous material
Microchannel
achievable heat flux dissipation and heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, the Reynolds number, other
Spray cooling selected thermal and/or flow parameters. Special attention is paid to the spray cooling technique, which
Critical Heat Flux (CHF) is the most effective direct cooling technology. For that reason, several parameters, such as: spray and
High Heat Flux (HHF) fluid types, maximum achieved heat flux, heat transfer coefficient, the Sauter Mean Diameter and flow
Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) rate are studied and compared in detail.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
2. Porous media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
3. Microchannel cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
4. Spray cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
5. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
6. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

1. Introduction

⇑ Corresponding author. The exponential growth of the nuclear industry [1], diode lasers
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Pietrowicz). [2] and electronic devices [3] goes hand-in-hand with an

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.05.096
1359-4311/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646 637

increasing value of generated heat and consequently an undesir- Present solutions use a liquid in a single- or two-phase cooling
able temperature rise. The generated heat, precisely heat flux, is medium flow. In a two-phase flow, heat transfer via liquid is lim-
in turn one of the main inhibitors of technological development. ited due to the boiling curve [33]. Because of the highest achievable
A certain crucial problem of thermal management has been heat transfer coefficient, the nucleate boiling regime is, from the
recently observed in the field of computer technology, where processing point of view, most efficient [34,35]. Unfortunately,
promising designs of near future high clock speed processors can when a heat flux exceeds its Critical Heat Flux (CHF) value, the
reach heat flux values from 300 W cm2 [4] up to 500 W cm2 transfer coefficient significantly decreases and the temperature
[5,6] in the background, or even 1000 W cm2 [7] at the hot- difference between the fluid and the heated surface grows rapidly,
spots. High Heat Fluxes (HHF) in other technologies can even exceed which can cause damage to the material surface. The techniques
these values. In some fusion reactor facilities, which are being con- described in the paper show how to change the boiling character-
structed within the ITER project, the expected heat flux is about istic and increase the CHF limit.
50 W cm2 [8]. In laser diode arrays the fluxes can exceed In the past, some reviews concerning the subject of the paper
1000 W cm2 [9,10] at temperature of 27  1 °C [9]. were considered. Ebadian and Lin [36] studied high and extremely
However, the tendency of heat flux dissipation can be signifi- high heat flux removal techniques, a single- and two-phase flow in
cantly decreased in modern multicore microchips by introducing a microchannel, jet impingement, sprays, wettability, and piezo-
the thread migration methods [11]. Thanks to these techniques electrically driven droplets. Agostini et al. [4] reviewed single-
an average heat flux can obtain values of up to 20 W cm2 in the and two-phase flows in a microchannel, single- and two-phase
background [12] and 150 W cm2 at hot-spots. flows in a porous media, and jet impingement cooling. Kandlikar
Points of inhomogeneous heat distribution (hot-spots) decrease and Bapat [37] presented a review on microchannels, spray cool-
the efficiency and reliability of processors. Moreover, in order to ing, and jet impingement. In all of these articles it was said that
avoid the computer chips’ failure, the microchip surface should only liquid cooling could satisfy the HHF capabilities. In addition,
be maintained at a temperature lower than 85 °C [4,13,14]. In fact, a single-phase flow was preferable to the two-phase technique,
the present cooling techniques are not able to dissipate the which has not been fully understood so far. In the present paper
assumed heat fluxes. For instance, forced air convection can the information about the mentioned techniques is updated and
remove approximately 150 W cm2 [15] or slightly more with compared with respect to a possible application in compact
additional improvements such as the scraped surface technique thermal management systems.
[16]. Similarly, the maximal achievable heat flux of water pool
boiling reaches approximately 120 W cm2 [17].
2. Porous media
Thus, a new generation of thermal management systems is
essential to protect electronic devices, among others, against an
A porous media is a common technique used to enhance a heat
increased heat flux and temperature peak, as well as to maintain
flux removal by increasing the heat transfer area between solid and
a small total package volume [18]. The following three cooling
fluid regions. The idea of this technique is shown in Fig. 1.
techniques are very promising with respect to the requirements
Porous media are an alternative to microchannel heat sinks, due
for compact space systems:
to their manufacturing simplicity, compact size and good heat dis-
tribution of performance requirements. A characteristic structure

heat removal technique with porous media,
of the porous media is composed of sintered particles made of

microchannel heat sinks, and
bronze [21], stainless-steel [38], copper [39] or an irregular struc-

spray cooling.
ture of aluminum (or other metals) foams [40,41]. Because of the
good thermal contact between each particle [42], porous particles
Other techniques, such as integrated heat pipe systems, are not
outperform non-sintered ones. As it was noticed in [43], in case of
reviewed in this paper since they belong to the so-called Indirect
sintered metal particles heat transfer increases 15 times for water
Cooling Techniques, in which the heat from high temperature
or 30 times for air in comparison to the non-sintered porous media.
regions is taken by an intermediate medium or special additional
Thermal parameters such as heat transfer coefficient and Col-
devices and transferred to low temperature regions [19,20].
burn factor increase when the pore size decreases. The pore diam-
The heat removal technique with porous media (in the text
eter influences the pressure drop across the porous medium as
abbreviated to porous media) is based on a solid matrix material
well. It is pointed out in [43] that a decrease in pore size of about
structure. The solid matrix is made of a material characterized by
3 times from 60 lm to 20 lm approximately doubles the pressure
high thermal conductivity, which intensifies heat transfer to the
drop. As the pressure drop is proportional to the square of the
coolant. The irregular structure of sintered particles [21] as well
mean flow velocity [44], it is recommended to maintain flow inside
as the ordered package of spherical pebbles [22] are used.
The microchannel heat sinks are mainly intended for cooling
the electronic components down [9,12,13,23–26] and can be trea-
ted as a small-scale heat exchanger, in which the fluid flows into
ducts a fraction of a millimeter wide. These two techniques are
similar in respect to the mechanism of heat transfer enhancement
which is achieved by increasing the contact heat transfer area and
by intensifying the fluid flow inside the channels.
The spray cooling technique is characterized by great perfor-
mance and uniform heat distribution and, in comparison to other
solutions is a reliable means of cooling electronic components sen-
sitive to temperature [27] in the metallurgy casting process [28–
30] or even in some space applications [31]. In principle, the spray
cooling technique is based on fluid fragmentation caused by inter-
nal or external forces or centrifugal forces [32]. The created cloud
of droplets impacts on a solid surface and absorbs the produced
heat very effectively in a short period of time. Fig. 1. Sintered particles of the porous media.
638 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646

Fig. 2. Pressure drop across the porous media in relation to the porosity (see Table 1).

Table 1
Porous media – literature review.

Paper Porous media type Fluid Heat flux hc =N u T surf / Dp/L Mass flow Re  Width x Year
DT fs rate height/
length
(W cm2) (W cm2 K1/–) (°C) (kPa cm1) (kg s1) (%) (mm)
[38] Stainless-steel particles Water 11.4 1.5–4/– 42– 62.5 0.015–0.833 3967.8 36.9 58  5/80 1997
(dp = 0.428 mm) 45/–
⁄
[21] Bronze particles (dp = 0.278 mm) Water NA 1.8–3/– NA 75.0 0.095 2096 34.1 58  5/80 1999
[54] Sintered copper bi-dispersed Water⁄⁄ 80(CHF) NA –/18 NA NA NA 52 30  10/50 2000
porous (dp = 80/200 mm)
[45] Aluminum screens inserted on Air 0.013 –/70 33/– 1:29  103 NA NA 98.1 /63.5  500 2004
steel rod (/63:5 mm) with
distance of 2.5 mm between
screens
[41] Aluminum foam (40 PPI) Water 1.6 –/210 180/– 0.06 NA 178– 90.0 50  10/50 2005
874
[42] Sintered porous bronze Air 1.9 –/350 –/14 NA NA 4268 37.0 3  4/50 11 2005
(dp = 0.704 mm) channels
[43] Sintered stainless steel particles Water 600 10.9/– –/55 2:25  103 0.004 1800 32.0 5  1/2 2006
[53] Tungsten foam Helium 2240 NA 2295/– 18.42 0.027 NA NA /12.7  38 2007
[39] Sintered porous copper Water 290 1.8–2/– < 100/– 250.0 0.0042 NA 40.0 20  2/14 2009
ðdp = 0.1–0.2 mm)
[59] Stripe carbon nanotubes (CNT) Water⁄⁄ 770(CHF) 18/– 130/40 NA NA NA 96 18  0.250/ 2012
forests 18
[40] Copper metallic foam (36 PPI) n- 22.5 1.5/– 15/ NA 76 kg s1 m2 NA 97 50  10/ 2013
Pentane 33.13 100
[52] Mono-dispersed copper particle R-600a 6.5 2.7/– –/10 3.0 0.0053 NA 50.211 /7.5 2014
(dp = 1 mm)
[46] Stainless steel wires Air NA –/0.20 NA 66.6 NA 25 37 12  5/6 2015
(/ = 0.14 mm)
[56] Horizontal tube coated with R-134a 6 0.4/– 45/35 NA – – 90 /19  2.5 2015
open cell copper foam (130 PPI)
⁄
– Not available.
⁄⁄
– Two-phase flow.

a porous medium in the laminar flow regime, which minimizes the thermal transfer distribution along the porous media is
exploitation cost in operation. It was indicated that the range of non-uniform and its value reaches the maximum Nusselt
pressure drop per unit length in porous materials varies from number (Nu) at the inlet of the heat sink. Furthermore, the
1:29  103 kPa cm1 [45] to 2:23  103 kPa cm1 [43] and depends temperature distribution at the surface changes together with
on porosity factor (see Fig. 2 and Table 1). the Nu number in the direction of a fluid flow. Local surface
One of the most important thermal parameters for porous temperature can vary between the outermost locations by
media is the effective thermal conductivity factor ðkeff Þ, which more than 50% [51].
can be described as [45]: The application of porous media is very wide, depending on the
core flow. Porous media are mostly put inside circular pipes
keff ¼   kf þ ð1  Þks ð1Þ
[45,52,53] or ducts [21,38,39,54], but some of them can be treated
where  is the porosity factor,  , kf ; ks are the thermal conductivity as a surface cover in microchannels [55], outer pipe surfaces [56] or
of the fluid and the solid phase respectively, W m1 K1. special grooves [57]. In the following papers several systems of
This equation is valid under some assumptions described in single- and two-phase flows are studied. All results are summa-
[43]. Many researchers [21,38,42,46–50] have shown that the rized in Table 1.
 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646 639

The enhancement of the heat transfer by this method is Nu1

hc ¼ kf  ð2Þ
achieved by the intensification of the flow redistribution (flow Dh
channeling), thermal conductivity modification and the enhance-
where hc is the forced convection heat transfer coefficient, W cm2
ment of the radiative heat transfer [45]. Inter alia Pavel and Moha-
K1; kf is the fluid thermal conductivity, W cm1 K1; Nu1 is the
mad in [45] described an air heat exchanger made of long cylinders 2W ch Hf
filled with porous metallic screens mounted on a metal rod at a asymptotic value of the Nusselt number, –; Dh ¼ W ch þHf
is the char-
specific distance. The most promising results (the Nu number acteristic width of the channel, so-called the hydraulic diameter, m
around 70) were obtained for a screen porosity factor () of (see Fig. 3).
98.1%, and the Reynolds number (Re) of 4500. Hetsroni et al. [43] The forced convection heat transfer coefficient hc , Eq. (2), is
experimentally obtained a heat flux value of up to 600 W cm2 obtained for a fully developed temperature profile (invariant along
with the heat transfer coefficient of about 10 W cm2 K1 for sin- the channel) for laminar flow. The presented Nusselt number
tered stainless steel particles at a porosity factor ðÞ of about ðNu1 Þ depends on the shape of the cross-section and is in the range
32%. However, the maximal heat flux of approximately of 3–9. For this reason, the heat transfer coefficient for a given cool-
2240 W cm2 was achieved at a surface temperature equaled to ant (in which fluid conduction is specified) can be increased only
2295 °C, by Youchison et al. [53] for the tungsten porous material by minimizing the characteristic width to micrometers. A decrease
heat sink cooled by gas helium. This application was constructed of the channel width has an exponential effect on the heat flux.
for the plasma-facing components, where a heat exchanger of This relationship is shown in Fig. 4 and Table 2. Obviously, the
Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) with tungsten foam was tested characteristic width cannot be reduced infinitely. The researchers
and a relatively low pressure drop of 0.07 MPa [60] point out that the coolant viscosity sets the lower limit on
(Dp=L = 1.842 MPa m1) was observed. Despite using this tech- the channel side.
nique, the temperature at the surface, even for plasma-facing com- Preferable coolants applied in a microchannel heat sink are usu-
ponents, is still too high [58] and another method is needed. ally water and fluorocarbons [61]. However, in some experiments
Different types of porous inserts were investigated for years. different types of nanofluids are used as well [62]. Qu and Muda-
Wen in [52] presented an investigation of a porous insert into a cir- war [61] mention the following possible advantages of the two-
cular pipe with mono and bi-dispersed copper particles (porosity phase microchannel systems in comparison to single-phase ones:
factor changed from 49.957% up to 50.425%). According to the
results, a smaller particle diameter ðdp Þ contributes to a better heat
higher forced convective heat transfer coefficient,
transfer performance in a two-phase coolant flow (R-600a). Other
increased temperature uniformity, and
researchers [41,42,56,59] intensified the heat transfer by a specific
smaller coolant mass flow rates.
design of porous heat sinks. Also worth mentioning are sintered
porous channels with baffles tested by Tzeng et al. [42] or an oscil- On the other hand, for water the flow boiling sometimes could
lating single-phase flow of cooling medium through the porous be characterized by hydraulic instabilities or existence of the peri-
media made by Leong and Jin [41]. odic dry-zones [63]. However, for refrigerants the flow is observed
From an economic point of view, the application of ordinary to be stable even for non-uniform heat flux distribution [26].
materials in a porous media such as bronze, copper and Research performed on microchannel heat sinks showed that
stainless-steel results in relatively low production costs. On the heat transfer significantly increases in the case of a two-phase
other hand, manufacturing porous media is complicated as there flow. Nevertheless, the cooling process has variable heat flux pat-
is a serious challenge to achieve good quality of porosity [47]. Sub- terns depending on the liquid vapor quality x. Agostini et al. [64]
sequently high porosity (especially in metal foams) leads to low suggested that there are two dominant trends where the heat
mechanical strength, which makes the structure breakable and transfer coefficient increases with the heat flux between low and
mechanically fragile. Nevertheless, a significant mass reduction moderate vapor quality, and sharply decreases at higher vapor
of about 78% with the reduction of thermal resistance by about quality. Additionally, for high vapor quality the heat transfer coef-
28% could be achieved in comparison to the conventional ficient is independent of the heat flux and the mass flow rate. The
parallel-plate fin heat sink [41]. non-uniform heat distribution can indirectly cause some backflows
or strong instabilities during flow boiling [65]. For this reason, the
proper design of microchannel heat sinks becomes extremely
3. Microchannel cooling
complex.
The design of the microchannel width should be optimized with
The idea of microchannel cooling (shown in Fig. 3) can be sum-
regard to the thermal and flow properties of the fluid to protect the
marized in Eq. (2) by the introduction of the heat transfer coeffi-
surface against non-uniform temperature distribution [66] along
cient based on i.a. the research performed by Tuckerman and
the micro-heat exchanger as well as drying out the surface. The
Pease [60]:
thermal optimizations of microchannels are presented in [60]
and mainly include such parameters as the channel and fin widths.
The values of the pressure drop per unit length in microchannel
heat sinks vary from 30  103 kPa cm1 [67] to 5:08  103 kPa cm1
[9] (see Table 2) and are almost in the same range as for porous
media.
The literature taken into account in this paper contains both
single-phase and two-phase microchannel heat sinks. All the data
is presented in Table 2. In [14,26,55,64,67–70] the heat transfer
coefficient is described as:
q
hc ¼ ; ð3Þ
DT
where q is the removed heat flux, W cm2; DT is the temperature
Fig. 3. Microchannel heat sink. difference between the surface and the cooling medium, K.
640 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646

Fig. 4. Heat flux trends in comparison to the single channel width (see Table 2).

Alternatively, in [14,26,55,64,68,69] DT is defined as the difference were higher in many cases in comparison to a single-phase
between the local temperature of the wall and saturation tempera- water flow.
ture of the coolant, whereas in [67,70] DT is calculated as the aver- In order to reduce the non-uniform heat distribution caused by
age temperature difference of the wall and the medium. hot-spots, a novel construction of optimized microchannel design
Several researchers describe the thermal behavior of heat sinks was proposed and analyzed in [12]. This promising construction
by one resistance parameter, which equals [60]: involves the multi-zone manifold, where a different width of
microchannel was used for the hot-spot zone and for the
DT
h¼ ; ð4Þ background.
Q_ Other studies focused on phase change cooling systems are ana-
lyzed. Some of them investigate the thermal properties of HFC’s
where DT is the temperature rise in the loop, °C or K; Q_ – the heat
refrigerants, while articles [67,70,75] are based on R-134a, a very
dissipation, W. The value of thermal resistance usually varies
popular refrigeration plant agent. Bertsch et al. in [75] observed a
between 0.03 and 0.10 °C W1 (see Table 2).
peak heat transfer coefficient of 0.8 W cm2 K1 with a vapor qual-
Single-phase heat transport was discussed in [9,24,60,62]. The
ity of approximately x = 0.2. The heat transfer coefficient was con-
cooling medium was mostly water with the exception being the
sidered as a function of vapor quality for three different pressure
nanofluid suspension used by Jang and Choi [62]. The heat flux
values (400, 500, 750 kPa) and four different mass fluxes (20.3,
reached values of 500 W cm2 [24] through 650 W cm2 [9] even
40.5, 60.8, 81.0 kg m2 s1). The results for different test conditions
up to 790 W cm2 [60]. An even better cooling performance was
show that the saturation pressure does not significantly affect the
achieved by nanofluid suspensions [62], where two types of sus-
heat transfer coefficient.
pension, made of copper (6 nm particles, 1% of volume in mixture)
Park and Thome [70] presented two types of test sections,
and diamond nanoparticles (2 nm particles, 1% of vol.) were tested.
where R245fa, R236fa, R-134a fluids were tested. The highest heat
The maximum value of the peak heat flux for the water-based sus-
flux of 342 W cm2 was obtained for R-134a in 20 parallel channels
pension with diamond nanoparticles reached approximately
(0.467 mm wide, 4.052 mm height and 30 mm long in the flow
1350 W cm2. This is about 10% higher than for the pure water
direction).
solution (at the same mass flow rate). Because of the very promis-
Some influence of a subcooling rate was noticed. The maximum
ing heat transfer performances, the microchannel heat sink with
heat flux reached about 342 W cm2 with subcooling of 20 K and it
nanofluid used as a cooling medium such as: Al2O3–water or
was about 10–20% higher than for 3 K subcooling condition. On the
TiO2–water, has been the subject of research in many recent pub-
other hand, the same inlet pressure condition set in the other test
lications [71–73]. Generally, it can be concluded that a combina-
Section (0.199  0.756 mm and 30 mm long) showed similar
tion of microchannels with nanofluids reduced both the thermal
trends as before, but no significant subcooling effect was observed.
resistance and the temperature difference between the heated
microchannel wall and the coolant but slightly increased pressure
drop in comparison to pure fluid. 4. Spray cooling
Another efficient type of mixing techniques is the heat sink pre-
sented in [14,55], where the flow in a microchannel was enhanced A spray cooling technique, schematically presented in Fig. 5, is a
by a sintered porous coating. very efficient way to remove the heat from a surface characterized
Very interesting, from the structural point of view is the by high heat flux. Spray cooling is mainly used in metallurgy [28–
microchannel heat exchanger presented by Houshmand and Peles 30,33,76] but may also be applied in microelectronic thermal man-
[74]. They proposed to cool the surface down by a thin film of dis- agement systems [18,77,78]. As shown by many researchers, spray
tilled water driven by the nitrogen gas flowing parallel to the free cooling is one of the most efficient techniques for heat flux removal
surface of water. The heat sink was constructed as a single per unit of the fluid flow [79,80]. It also provides a homogenous
microchannel groove (1.5 mm wide and 0.22 mm deep). Shear- temperature distribution across the cooling surface [35] by achiev-
driven motion presented in [74] was treated as a two-phase flow ing the uniform impinging droplet flux [81], small surface super-
(of nitrogen gas and water) without any phase transition during heat [82], and high rate of cooling [83,84]. In this case, the heat
the cooling process. Finally, the maximum heat flux of 580 W cm2 transfer coefficient ðhc Þ easily exceeds 5 W cm2 K1 for refriger-
was achieved. The researcher asserted that these results ants and is even higher for water (see Fig. 6).
 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646 641

1981
1989
1996
1998

2012
2013

2013
2015
2001
2002
2004
2005

2008
2008
2010
Year
Width  height/length/

0.231  0.713/44.8/21

0.762  1.905/9.53/17

0.085  0.56/12.7/135
0.223  0.680/20/67
0.467  4.052/30/20
0.4; 1; 2  20/300/–
number of channels

0.214  0.2/57.15/–
0.057  0.365/–/–

0.350  0.040/–/–
/2  0.5/200/28

0.4  0.9/32/13
0.1  0.4/10/40

0.4  0.4/10/10
12  0.5/9.1/1

1.5  0.22/1/1
(mm)

(l) 0.2 m3 s1 m2(g)

1:42  104 (m3/s)
8:6  106 (m3/s)
2:0  105 (m3/s)

61 m3 s1 m2
51.7–207.92
(kg m2 s1)
Flow rate

988.3

182.8
1782
100

400
500
NA

NA

81

–
< 10:0 (l); 100.0 (g)
(kPa cm1)

Fig. 5. Single-nozzle spray.

5:08  103
Dp=L

1.13

1.88
0.31
0.03
NA⁄
482

NA
NA
NA

3.0
NA
NA

NA

The spray cooling efficiency of the heat dissipation can be

described as a ratio of the heat flux that has been removed by fluid
30/95(Tin–Tout)

to the maximum heat flux which could possibly be removed by

25/62ðT surf Þ
T i n=DT f s

spray [27,78,85]. The maximum heat flux is defined as the heat

/31(T sat )

8.3/12

30.5/–
23/71

5/100

30/60
/20.1

absorbed during the convection and phase transition, where dro-

11/–

22/–

–/27
(°C)

/80
NA

NA

plets completely evaporate. But the maximal heat absorption and

the complete evaporation of droplets during phase change is diffi-
0.1–0.5 (x = 0.15–0.75)⁄⁄/–

cult to obtain. When droplets are distributed too slowly, the sur-
(W cm2 K1/°C W1)

face temperature can significantly increase and droplets can

exceed the Leidenfrost point. However, when the speed of droplets
0.8(x = 0.2)⁄⁄/–

distribution is too high, a thick liquid film is formed on the heated

0.6(x = 0.2)/–

2(x = 0.2)⁄⁄/–

surface and thermal performance drops as well [18].

/0.06019

8–12⁄⁄/–
19.2⁄⁄/–

Therefore, keeping in mind increasing efficiency of the method,

2.5⁄⁄/–
/0.079

3–7/–

2.0/–
/0.09

/0.03
hc =h

numerical optimization of a single droplet spray impact is the

NA

NA

subject of ongoing research [80,86,87].

The present understanding of the spray cooling seems to be
Max. heat flux

poor in terms of an unusually large number of independent param-

(W cm2)

342(CHF)
93(CHF)

eters [35,85,88] such as: the fluid flow rate, vapor quality, droplet
1350

velocity, inlet pressure, the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) of the

221
790

650

180

160
580
500

100
1.5

37
20
2

droplet, the distance of the nozzle from the heated surface, fluid
subcooling degree, positioning of the nozzle relative to the surface,
Distilled water + nitrogen

etc. Many researchers divided the heat transfer mechanism in

spray cooling into convective heat transfer and nucleate boiling
Water þ diamond
Deionized water
Deionized water

(in both surface and secondary nucleation) [82,89–91]. More com-

plex division considers the interaction of the fluid film with gas
and droplets [80]. Therefore, the optimization of the geometrical
particles

Ethanol
R-134a

R-134a

R-134a
R236fa

R245fa
Water
Water
Water

R-113

FC-87

parameters should be treated separately for each nozzle[88]. The

Fluid

gas

complexity of the geometric dependences on the thermal proper-

ties of fluids, makes this method still uncommon.
Porous fin tops on open channels

Selected parameters of the liquid spray cooling technique are

– Maximal local heat transfer coefficient.

presented in Table 3, which shows the comparison of sprays based

on different working fluids (from commercially available refriger-
ants to natural coolants) and nozzle types. Among the parameters,
Microchannel – literature review.

the CHF value, defined as the highest achievable heat flux removed
by that method, has been included. The heat transfer coefficient
Flow character

Porous-coated
Single-phase
Single-phase
Single-phase

Single-phase

ðhc Þ in Table 3 is defined as the ratio of heat flux to the temperature

Two-phase
Two-phase
Two-phase
Two-phase

Two-phase
Two-phase
Two-phase
Two-phase
Two-phase

l – Liquid and g – gas.

difference ðDT fs Þ between surface temperature ðT surf Þ and fluid inlet

– Not available.

temperature ðT f Þ.
The highest CHF value is reached for spray cooling using water
as a working medium (500.0 W cm2 [89], 638.0 W cm2 [30],
Paper
Table 2

[24]

[67]
[69]
[61]
[68]
[62]

[75]
[64]

[26]
[74]

[55]
[14]
[60]

[70]

945.7 W cm2 [17]). The choice of fluid is based on good thermal

[9]

properties, but also according to the requirements of the working

⁄⁄
⁄
642 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646

Fig. 6. Heat flux trends in relation to heat transfer coefficient for spray cooling (see Table 3).

Table 3
Spray cooling – literature review.

Paper Spray type Fluid Max. heat flux hc T surf =DT fs pin =Dp Flow rate Area SMD Year
(W cm2) (W cm2 K1) (°C) (kPa) (m3 m2 s1) (cm2) (lm)
[30] Single-nozzle Water 638 NA⁄ NA –/255 NA 1 583 1989
[17] Single-nozzle Water 945.7 8.38 127.8/112.8 551/– 0.0026 (kg/s) 1 68.7 2002
[89] Multi-nozzle FC-87 90 2.06 82/40 –/241 0.0204 2 36.5 2003
[89] Multi-nozzle FC-72 83.5 2.23 89/36 –/310 0.0222 2 38.7 2003
[89] Multi-nozzle Methanol 490 6.45 113/60 –/241 0.0363 2 62.3 2003
[89] Multi-nozzle Water 500 9.78 120/50 –/241 0.0249 2 88.8 2003
[85] Single-nozzle PF-5052 236.7 4.89 72.4/48.4 –/121 1:01  105 (m3/s) 1 174 2006
[91] Multi-nozzle PF-5060 140 NA 70.5/– –/379 0.016 NA NA 2006
[92] Single-nozzle FC-77 349 3.41 129.4/102.4 –/174 2:39  105 (m3/s) 1 183 2008
[79] Multi-nozzle Antifreeze coolant 400 28 105/14 –/150 0.025 2 NA 2009
[88] Single-nozzle Distilled water 250 3.8 84/56 600/– 1:4  106 (m3/s) 1 40–110 2010
[99] Single-nozzle Water 322 2.66 145/121 NA 5:28  107 (m3/s) NA 85–100 2010
[18] Multi-nozzle FC-72 150 2.4 NA NA 1:67  105 (m3/s) 6.452 NA 2011
[90] Single-nozzle R-600a 110 3 31.5/– 285/110 NA 1.130 60–90 2012
[103] Single-nozzle R-22 276.1 7 26.8/37 800/460 NA 1.130 NA 2012
[104] Multi-nozzle R-717 910 20 40/– –/48 0.016(l); 0.138(v) 1 NA 2012
[82] Multi-nozzle R-134a 165 3.9 48/40–45 –/474 0.01042 (kg/s) NA 182–145 2013
[98] Single-nozzle Deionized water 808 5.77 –/90 NA 1:69  105 – – 2013
[101] Multi-nozzle Ammonia 451 14.8 1/30.4 664/564 0.0045 (kg/s) 7.89 32 2013
[28] Single-nozzle Water–ethanol mixture 366 6 900/– 400/– 16:6  105 1 NA 2014
[95] Single-nozzle Water 275 NA 1020/– 400/– 38:89  105 1.44 NA 2015
[31] Multi-nozzle Distilled water 245 2 150/– NA 0.0045 (kg/s) 2 219–276 2015
[102] Single-nozzle R-134a 122.2 2.1 56/56.9 400/– 5:93  106 (m3/s) 2.01 NA 2016

l – Liquid and v – vapor.

⁄
– Not available

conditions in electronic circuits. For example, specially prepared In [82] 6 swirl nozzles spraying R-134a fluid on the 10  20 mm
dielectric refrigerants were used in electronic cooling devices: hot surface were constructed and described. The nozzles were
PF-5060 [91], PF-5052 [35,85], FC-72 [18,89], FC-77 [92], FC-87 customized in the 1.9 mm thick nozzle plate and mounted at the
[89]. distance of 8.8 mm from an impact area. It was observed that
Lin and Ponnappan [89] demonstrated experimental results for between 35 and 120 W cm2 heat flux, the T surf decreased together
8 swirl spray nozzles in an array using different media as a working with the rise in the mass flow rate up to 0.0104 kg s1. Further
fluid (FC-87, FC-72, methanol and water). Data was obtained for intensification of the heat flux can raise T surf , which is related to
various operating temperatures (boiling temperature from 30 to the increase of the liquid film thickness due to a higher mass flow
100 °C, saturated temperature between 42.5 and 70 °C), heat fluxes rate. However, in the overall picture, the rejected heat flux value
(from 79 to higher than 500 W cm2), and pressure drops Dp across increases together with the amount of supplied cooling medium
the nozzle (between 69 and 310 kPa). It was proved that for all flu- [33,88,93,94].
ids, a volumetric flux of the coolant has a dominant effect on the Cooling improvement can be obtained by the modification of
heat transfer or an increasing pressure drop across the multi- the impact angle [88,91,95] as well. Multi-nozzle spray, proposed
nozzle array. The temperature is of primary importance when by Sheed [18], (0.150 mm in diameter orifice) were placed in a lin-
superheat DT fs is less than 15 °C. In this case, the heat transfer is ear array position at 45° to the heated surface. Consequently, it was
mainly governed by forced convection and evaporation of a liquid possible to minimize interactions between sprays (more uniform
film from the surface. surface coverage) and to achieve the peak heat flux of about
 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646 643

150 W cm2 for FC-72. This construction increases the effective- dissipated by a flat surface) was noticed for a straight finned sur-
ness by 34% compared to the conventional type of single nozzle face at a nozzle inclination angle of 30° (the CHF = 140 W cm2).
spray cooling. On the other hand, another experiment presented In [101] the authors proposed a microcavity surface, which
by [35] suggested that the inclination angle only has a small influ- increased the heat transfer performance about 1.3 times in com-
ence on heat transfer in natural convection and the nucleate boil- parison to the flat surface. The enhancement was explained by sur-
ing regime, but decreases the CHF with its increase. Opposite face extension as well as capillary effect.
results were obtained by Silk et al. [91], who found the optimal Heat transfer can be also improved by supplying subcooled liq-
angle of inclination for the CHF. uid before a throttling device, or increasing the value of the satura-
Another geometrical parameter which has to be considered, is tion temperature [102]. According to [90], the overheating degree
the nozzle-to-surface distance. It affects heat transfer performance exceeds its optimum level in relation to the heating surface
due to the change in the impact coverage area, as well as the dro- temperature. For R-600a refrigerant and parameters set as inlet
plet impact energy. It was noticed that heat transfer performance pressure 390 kPa, saturation pressure 190 kPa, and constant heat
generally decreases with the increase of nozzle-to-surface distance flux 72 W cm2, optimum subcooling temperature for that fluid
[81,88,96]. was 5.8 K. The researchers pointed out that the optimal level of
The effects of the mean droplet size (defined as the Sauter Mean subcooling could vary depending on different boundary conditions
Diameter – SMD), droplet flux and droplet velocity on the CHF and types of spray nozzles.
value were investigated by [17,97]. Chen et al. [17] performed sev-
eral experiments on a single spray cone nozzle supplied by sub-
cooled water. It was concluded that higher velocity and droplet 5. Discussion
flux implied higher CHF value. For example, when the speed of
the droplets varied from 4.64 to 24.1 m s1 and the SMD and mean Based on the reviewed literature, the authors of the paper con-
droplet flux were maintained at approx. 68 lm and 15  106 cm2 clude that, generally the highest achievable heat flux of
s1, the CHF varied from 636.7 W cm2 to 945.9 W cm2 (increased 1000 W cm2 is obtained by spray cooling method using water as
nearly by 50%). The value of the heat transfer coefficient also the working medium. A much narrower range of the maximum
increased from 5.94 W cm2 K1 to 8.38 W cm2 K1 (almost heat flux removed (from 600 W cm2 to 700 W cm2) is observed
40%). It was noticed that the SMD could not noticeably raise the for a porous medium and microchannel techniques, which is the
CHF value. consequence of similar mechanisms of heat transfer. In particular,
Different experiments were conducted by Rybicki and Mudawar the heat flux removal for these two techniques can be improved by
[85], who studied the influence of the SMD and subcooling on a using nanofluids for microchannels or special gases such as helium
downward-oriented spray supplied by PF-5052 coolant. The results for porous media. The comparison of removing heat flux for all
were compared with upward-oriented investigations conducted by techniques is summarized in Fig. 7. The comparison of the heat
Mudawar and Valentine [30] for water, and by Estes and Mudawar transfer coefficient range is presented in Fig. 8. The highest values,
[97] for FC-72, FC-87 coolants [85]. It was suggested that the posi- around 25–28 W cm2 K1 are achieved by refrigerant using the
tion of the spray (downward or upward) has no impact on the ther- spray cooling method. For competitive water based microchannel
mal performance of spray cooling. Only two hydrodynamic heat sinks the local heat transfer coefficient of about 20 W cm2
parameters (volumetric flux and the SMD) had significant effects K1 could be reached.
on the cooling performance. The mechanism of heat transfer in microchannel and porous
The enhancement of the heat transfer characteristics by apply- media requires either a small channel width or pore size (flow
ing different types of impact area structures were presented in paths) to enhance the cooling parameters. Moreover, with a
[91,98–101]. It is worth emphasizing the work of Silk et al. [91], decreasing value of flow paths, the pressure drop along the flow
who used interesting macrostructures of pin fins, pyramids, and direction increases exponentially, and its value changes in the
straight fins at a different angle of spray nozzles relative to the sur- range of 1:29  103 kPa cm1–5:00  103 kPa cm1. The main
face. By applying the aforementioned structures, the total wetted disadvantage of these techniques is related to a non-uniform heat
surface area grew from 2 cm2 for a flat surface up to 4.5 cm2 for transfer distribution. Also the heat flux depends on the fluid flow
pyramid structures. For steady states like mass flow, pressure direction. Additionally, instabilities as well as backflows in a
(set on 41.4 kPa) and constant nozzle height (of 17 mm), the high- microchannel heat sink caused by fluid two-phase flow may occur.
est heat flux enhancement (about 75% in comparison to the heat To diminish the presented drawbacks, the latest research is

Fig. 7. Comparison of maximal heat flux for different cooling methods: SC – spray cooling; MC – microchannel; PM – porous media.
644 P. Smakulski, S. Pietrowicz / Applied Thermal Engineering 104 (2016) 636–646

Fig. 8. Comparison of heat transfer coefficient for different cooling methods: SC – spray cooling; MC – microchannel; PM – porous media.

targeted on stabilizing the heat distribution by using oscillating characteristics of their construction, their reliability and feasibility,
fluid flows, new construction of heat sinks or different refrigerant as well as their heat transfer performance for future high heat flux
media (including nanofluids). removal. It was shown that among the analyzed methods, spray
It is also worth mentioning that for microchannel heat sinks and cooling should be considered as the most promising technique,
porous media high values of heat transfer coefficient and heat flux capable of high heat flux removal. It offers high reliability, similar
removal are obtained from two-phase flow, which from a technical pressure drop in comparison to porous media and microchannel
point of view is not reasonable. The two-phase flow is sometimes heat sinks, it is relatively simple to manufacture and has an excep-
unpredictable, difficult to control and leads to instability and local tionally high cooling performance.
overheating.
Spray cooling gives the most promising performances compar- Acknowledgements
ing with the other presented techniques. Its numerous advantages
include: temperature uniformity, wide range of applicability (from The work was performed within Wrocław University of Science
metallurgy to small scale electronic cooling), a variety of cooling and Technology, Poland internal Grant No. K0902/S50082. The
media, simplicity of construction, relatively low coolant flow rates, authors would like to thank Mrs. Joanna Ropicka for her helpful
reduction of contact thermal resistance, and fast cooling rate. Nev- discussions.
ertheless, each spray cooling system should be properly adjusted
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