A brief review is presented of experimental investigations of heat transfer enhancement during boiling on surfaces with nano- or microstructure. Distilled water boiling on microfinned surfaces made by deforming cutting was investigated. It was found that, for distilled water boiling on these surfaces with 3D microfinning (having an interfin gap of u = 120–180 μm, a microfin height of h = 340–570 μm, and a microfin pitch of w = 240–400 μm), heat transfer increased by a maximum factor of 4 to 5 as compared with that on smooth surfaces. Critical heat fluxes increase by a factor of up to 6 as compared with boiling on smooth surfaces.

There are many passive techniques of heat transfer enhancement; however, only a few of them are capable of providing a reliable increase in a heat transfer rate exceeding an increase in pressure losses. One of such successful techniques is the profiling of a heat transfer surface with a regular arrangement of dimples. Detailed numerical simulation of fluid flow and heat transfer has been performed in a dimpled narrow channel at a Reynolds number of 10,000. The orientation of oval-trench dimples on the heated surface has been evaluated numerically to establish the superior thermohydraulic performance over spherical dimples.

A fully developed laminar air flow in a plane-parallel channel of width 6 and height 1 with single-row inclined oval-trench dimples on the walls are calculated using multiblock computing technologies...