A critical heat flux correlation for droplet impact cooling

Abstract The characteristics of a single stream of monodispersed water droplets impacting a horizontal, upward facing flat surface have been investigated. The objective was to determine the effect of droplet diameter, impact frequency and impact velocity on the critical heat flux (CHF). A generalized correlation has been developed for the nondimensional CHF as a function of the Weber and Strouhal numbers of the impacting droplets. The Weber and Strouhal numbers ranged from 175 to 730 and 7.00 × 10 −3 −3.00 × 10 −2 , respectively. With a confidence level of greater than 95% differences between predicted and experimental CHF values were less than ±22%.