The main purpose of this paper was to determine and compare the boundary conditions of heat transfer on the cooled surface of a cylindrical sensor made of Inconel 600 alloy while cooling with a water jet, water spray and air-assisted water spray under high-temperature conditions. The inverse method for the heat conduction equation was used to determine the boundary conditions. Experimental tests were carried out, including temperature measurements at several points inside the cylinder while cooling with all the tested systems from a temperature of 900 °C for three values of water pressure: 0.05 MPa, 0.1 MPa and 0.2 MPa. Temperature measurements were used as the input data to identify the heat transfer boundary conditions. The temperature field of the axially symmetric sensor was determined using the finite element method. The boundary conditions were determined as average values of the heat transfer coefficient and heat flux and local values of the heat transfer coefficient. A comparison of the amount of thermal energy dissipating from the sensor surface as a result of boiling and a forced single-phase convection is also presented in the paper. The highest uniformity of cooling was obtained during air-assisted water spray-cooling.

The study determined the local and average heat transfer coefficient and the heat flux on the surface of a cylinder cooled with a water nozzle. The inverse method was used to identify the heat transfer coefficient. An objective function was defined to determine the distance between the measured and calculated temperatures. Two models describing the heat transfer coefficient on the cooled surface were considered. The first model described changes in the heat transfer coefficient as a function of the sample radius and cooling time, and the second one assumed the dependence of the heat transfer coefficient solely on time. Numerical simulations showed significant differences in the determined heat transfer coefficients depending on the adopted model of the boundary condition. The performed tests included experimental temperature measurements at selected points of the sensor, numerical simulations of temperature changes, and the inverse solution.