Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 14, 2025

Pool-Boiling Heat-Transfer Enhancement on Cylindrical Surfaces with Hybrid Wettable Patterns
Published on: April 10, 2017
Wicking Enhanced Critical Heat Flux for Highly Wetting Fluids on Structured Surfaces
Md Mahamudur Rahman1, Shakerur Ridwan2, Donald Fehlinger2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968, United States.
Abstract:
The use of micro/nano-scale structures has been shown to enhance critical heat flux (CHF) during pool boiling in recent studies. A correlation between wicking rate and CHF enhancement for structured superhydrophilic surfaces has been reported in prior work of the authors. In that work, a nondimensional correlation was developed and validated using only water as the working fluid. In this study, a highly wetting fluid (FC-72) was used to demonstrate the applicability of this correlation on structured surfaces for nonaqueous liquids. This has been achieved using a simple modification of the experimental procedure for highly wetting fluids. This experimental modification shows no effect on the quantification of the liquid wicking rate. Numerous structured superhydrophilic surfaces have been fabricated and tested, including micro- and nanoscale structures and hierarchical surfaces which showed the highest CHF enhancement (200%). More importantly, this work demonstrates the validity of the nondimensional parameters used in the proposed CHF correlation and its overall applicability to a wide range of nonaqueous liquids.
Related Concept Videos
Capillarity in Fluid
Surface tension is crucial to capillarity. It results from cohesive forces between liquid molecules at the liquid-air boundary, forming a skin that resists external forces. When the capillary tube...
Characteristics of Dry Friction
Before the wheelbarrow starts moving, the static frictional force acts tangentially to the contact surface, opposing the force that is about to induce the motion. This frictional force prevents the...
Surface Tension of Fluid
Surface tension varies...
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...
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer I

