Spray Cooling Techniques for Enhanced Heat Transfer Performance

Spray cooling has emerged as a high‐performance thermal management strategy capable of dissipating heat fluxes that far exceed those achievable by conventional convection or conduction methods. The technique relies on the impingement of fine droplets onto a heated surface, where rapid evaporation and phase change within nucleate and transitional boiling regimes drive exceptional heat transfer rates. Key parameters—such as droplet size distribution, impact velocity, impingement density and substrate wettability—govern the formation and stability of a liquid film and determine the onset of critical heat flux and vapour‐film insulative barriers. Recent advances in precision diagnostics and high‐fidelity numerical modelling have clarified the complex interplay between spray dynamics and thermal transport, enabling optimisation of nozzle design, fluid selection and surface treatment. Applications span microelectronic cooling, data centres, aerospace thermal control, continuous casting of metals and emergency reactor cooling. Remaining challenges include achieving uniform coverage over intricate geometries, accurately predicting heat transfer coefficients under transient conditions and integrating intelligent control of spray parameters for adaptive thermal management.

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Spray Cooling Techniques for Enhanced Heat Transfer Performance publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in spray cooling techniques for enhanced heat transfer performance across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Spray cooling: the process of directing a mist of liquid droplets onto a hot surface to remove heat via evaporation and boiling.

Nucleate boiling: a heat transfer regime where bubbles form at discrete nucleation sites on a heated surface, enhancing thermal transport.

Film boiling: a regime in which a continuous vapour layer separates the liquid from the surface, reducing heat transfer efficiency.

Heat transfer coefficient: a measure of the convective or boiling heat removal per unit area per unit temperature difference.

Droplet impingement density: the number of droplets impacting a unit area of surface per unit time, affecting cooling intensity.

Critical heat flux: the maximum heat flux at which nucleate boiling can be sustained before transition to film boiling occurs.

Leidenfrost temperature: the surface temperature above which a stable vapour layer forms beneath droplets, altering cooling behaviour.

References

1. Spray Cooling as a High-Efficient Thermal Management Solution: A Review. Energies (2022).
2. Multi-nozzle spray cooling of a reactor pressure vessel steel plate for the application of ex-vessel cooling. Nuclear Engineering and Design (2021).
3. Numerical Development of Heat Transfer Coefficient Correlation for Spray Cooling in Continuous Casting. Frontiers in Materials (2020).
4. Numerical Investigation on the Thermodynamic Characteristics of a Liquid Film upon Spray Cooling Using an Air-Blast Atomization Nozzle. Entropy (2020).
5. A numerical study of liquid film dynamics in multi-nozzle spray cooling of downward-facing surface. International Journal of Multiphase Flow (2023).