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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Pool-Boiling Heat-Transfer Enhancement on Cylindrical Surfaces with Hybrid Wettable Patterns
Published on: April 10, 2017
Critical heat flux enhancement in pool boiling through increased rewetting on nanopillar array surfaces
Thien-Binh Nguyen1, Dongdong Liu1, Md Imrul Kayes2
1School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
Abstract:
Boiling is a key heat transfer process for a variety of power generation and thermal management technologies. We show that nanopillar arrays fabricated on a substrate enhance both the critical heat flux (CHF) and the critical temperature at CHF of the substrate and thus, effectively increase the limit of boiling before the boiling crisis is triggered. We reveal that the enhancement in both the CHF and the critical temperature results from an intensified rewetting process which increases with the height of nanopillars. We develop a predictive model based on experimental measurements of rewetting velocity to predict the enhancement in CHF and critical temperature of the nanopillar substrates. This model is critical for understanding how to control boiling enhancement and designing various nanostructured surfaces into specific applications.
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