Condensation characteristics on surface with different groove shapes and wettability

Condensation heat transfer through phase change latent heat transfer, has a very high heat transfer performance. To enhance the condensation heat transfer efficiency, many scholars have proposed improving methods by designing grooves and different wetting surfaces. However, the previous studies mostly focused on condensation on the surface of rectangular grooves. Different groove shapes have the influence on the nucleation and spread of condensate, and then affect the condensation characteristics and heat transfer. Therefore, four different groove shapes were designed in this study, and a hybrid LBM model was used to study the condensation phase change and heat transfer characteristics of different groove shapes. The results show that different groove shapes have significant influence on the condensation nucleation and heat transfer by condensation. In addition, under different wettability walls, the shape of the groove with the best heat transfer performance is different. Under neutral and hydrophobic surface, the trapezoidal groove has the most effective condensation heat transfer performance, which is 23.58% and 43.66% higher than that of the rectangular groove, respectively. Further investigation aims at the reveal of the effect of different shape of grooves with mixed wettability on the condensation. Studies of mixed wettability surfaces in rectangular groove show that hydrophobic groove with hydrophilic bridge exhibit the best average integrated heat transfer performance, which is 12.71% higher than neutral surface. Studies of different shapes show that the triangular groove has the best heat transfer performance under the hydrophilic groove and hydrophobic bridge, while the trapezoidal groove has the best heat transfer performance under the hydrophobic groove and hydrophilic bridge surface.