Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Pool-Boiling Heat-Transfer Enhancement on Cylindrical Surfaces with Hybrid Wettable Patterns
Published on: April 10, 2017
The 'fine line' of heat rejection
1Norman Disney & Young, Brisbane.
Abstract:
Selection of heat rejection equipment has traditionally entailed a choice between the higher energy consumption of an air-cooled solution, and the high water consumption of a water-cooled solution. This paper examines advancement in heat rejection technology and the way it can be applied to air conditioning and refrigeration plant in healthcare and other facilities. It also examines field difficulties encountered in pipework design as the knowledge and experience levels of engineers designing systems with remote condensers diminish. With plant larger than 1,000 kW, the only option previously has been water-cooled solutions using an array of cooling towers, or perhaps an evaporative condenser, since air-cooled plant involved massive volumes of chemical refrigerant, which posed a problem ecologically. An additional hurdle was problems associated with limitations on pipe lengths for refrigeration plant. The advent of adiabatically pre-cooled closed circuit coolers and air-cooled condensers has introduced an alternative to cooling towers that offers the potential for "water-cooled performance" from an air-cooled solution with no serious threat of Legionella contamination. However, each application needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. The paper examines, in detail, the impact of adiabatic pre-cooling, with recent examples of its application in sub-tropical Brisbane providing evidence of the potential performance achievable.
Related Concept Videos
Mechanism of heat transfer
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer II
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer
Conduction, accounting for approximately 3% of body heat loss at rest, is the process of exchanging heat between molecules of two materials in direct contact. This can result in both heat loss and gain. For instance, when the body is submerged in water, which conducts heat 20 times more effectively than air, it can either lose or gain significant heat.
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer I
Refrigerators and Heat Pumps
A household refrigerator removes heat from the...
Heat Engines
Whenever we consider heat engines (and associated devices such as refrigerators and heat pumps), we do not use the standard sign convention for heat and work. For convenience, we assume that the symbols Qh, Qc, and W represent only the amounts of heat transferred...
