Frost formation on a super-hydrophobic surface under natural convection conditions

✍ Scribed by Zhongliang Liu; Yunjun Gou; Jieteng Wang; Shuiyuan Cheng

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 701 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0017-9310
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2008.03.026

✦ Synopsis

In this paper, the frost deposition phenomena on a cold super-hydrophobic surface whose contact angle with water is 162°were observed of the formation of water droplets, the freezing process, the formation of initial frost crystals and the frost layer structure. The frost layer structure formed on the super-hydrophobic surface shows remarkable differences to that on a plain copper surface: the structure is weaker, looser, thin and easy to be removed and most importantly, it is of a very special pattern, a pattern similar to a cluster of chrysanthemum petals, a frost layer structure that has not been reported before. The experimental results also show that the surface has a strong ability to restrain frost growth. The frost deposition on the surface was delayed for 55 min compared with the plain copper surface under the tested conditions.