Heat transfer during pulsating liquid jet impingement onto a vertical wall

Liquid jet impingement is used for cooling and cleaning in various industrial branches. The advantages of jet impingement include high heat and mass transport rates in the vicinity of the impingement point. Pulsating liquid jets impinging on horizontal substrates with a pulsation frequency around 100 Hz have been shown to increase the cooling efficiency in comparison to jets with continuous mass flow rates. The influence of jet pulsation on cooling efficiency for impingement of horizontal jets onto vertical walls has not yet been investigated. In the case of a vertical heated wall, gravity contributes to the liquid flow pattern. In particular, if the time span between two pulses is sufficiently long, the liquid drainage from the region above the impingement point can contribute to heat transport without increasing the average flow rate of the cooling medium. In this work, the influence of pulsations on heat transfer during impingement of a horizontal liquid jet onto a vertical wall is investigated experimentally for the pulsation frequency range 1–5 Hz. The results regarding increase of heat transfer efficiency are related to flow patterns developing by impingement of successive pulses, as well as to the liquid splattering.