Finding the keys to boiling heat transfer

Understanding the properties that control surface dissipation of heat could lead to improved power plants and electronics with high heat-transfer rates. A team of MIT researchers has succeeded in carrying out the first systematic investigation of the factors that control boiling heat transfer from a surface to a liquid. This process is crucial to the efficiency of power plants and the cooling of high-power electronics, and could even lead to improvements in how vehicles travel through water. The research deals with a key transition point known as the critical heat flux, or CHF, a value of heat transfer, per unit time and area, where a surface's heat-transfer characteristics suddenly change: For example, when the cooling panels of an electronics system become covered with a layer of vapor that blocks heat transfer, the resulting rise in temperature can damage or destroy the equipment. The new findings could raise the value of CHF, providing extra safety margins or operating ranges for such equipment. The research was carried out by seven MIT researchers and published in the journal Applied Physics Letters . Co-author Jacopo Buongiorno, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, says it could lead to safer nuclear reactors, more efficient heat exchangers, and better thermal management of high-power electronics.