Dropwise condensation heat transfer model with liquid-solid surface free energy difference effect
Dropwise condensation heat transfer performance depends on not only the condensing conditions, but also the interfacial interaction between liquid and solid. Compared to the well-established Rose’s model, a new model of dropwise condensation heat transfer was proposed by considering the interfacial interaction between liquid and solid, and was established by rebuilding the space conformation of drop distribution into time conformation.The simulation results indicated that heat transfer coefficient increased with increasing surface free energy difference and decreasing contact angle hysteresis. A larger contact angle and the smaller departure drop size resulted in higher heat transfer coefficient. Different interfacial effects gave rise to different heat transfer curves. For the identical solid-liquid-vapor system, the simulation results agreed well with the present experimental data and those reported by Rose.The disagreement between experimental results in literature might be well explained with the concept of the present paper.