Design guidelines of laser structured surfaces for enhanced pool boiling heat transfer

Boiling enhancement has emerged as a salient pathway to improve energy efficiency and reduce operating costs. In this work, we strengthen external pool boiling of R-1336mzz(Z) on tube exteriors by optimizing laser texturing recipes. Systematic adjustment of laser parameters enables deterministic control of surface morphology, with distinct parameter sets imparting characteristically different topographies. Guided by Hsu’s model, we select processing conditions that yield a broad distribution of re-entrant cavities whose sizes fall within the activation window while maintaining a high areal nucleation site density. The results show that, throughout the nucleate boiling regime, the HTC enhancement ratio of the laser textured tube exceeds 4 compared to the plain Cu tube. High speed visualization corroborates this gain by revealing dense bubble departure associated with the elevated population of active sites. These findings provide actionable guidance for the design and fabrication of laser processed surfaces for boiling applications.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Yiyang

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miljkovic, Nenad

• Pool Boiling
• Refrigerant
• Laser

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Yiyang Chen

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132682

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132682