Dr. Jorge L. Alvarado, associate professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University, recently gave an invited lecture on droplet impingement dynamics and surface cooling at Rice University.
During the lecture, Alvarado revealed his recent findings in the physics of droplet impingement on heated surfaces. He and his team recently published a paper in the International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow in which they postulated a revised theoretical crown propagation model capable of predicting droplet impingement dynamics for a range of conditions.
His current research efforts are part of a project funded by the Qatar National Research Foundation (QNRF), in which he and his collaborators at Texas A&M University at Qatar, Dr. Reza Sadr and Dr. Anoop Kanjirakat, are uncovering the fundamental physical processes taking place when microscale droplets impinge heated surfaces at high speed. One of the long-term objectives of the study is to formulate efficient cooling strategies for microreactor cooling applications.
Alvarado and his team have been able to develop a state-of-the-art facility for droplet impingement studies and are also conducting numerical studies to understand transient heat transfer phenomena in droplet impingement cases.