Frontiers and Progress in Multiphase Flow and Heat Transfer

Abstract

Multiphase flow and heat transfer are critical in both traditional and newly emerging engineering fields. Understanding the fundamentals and mechanisms of multiphase flow and heat transfer is continuously needed in order to develop the relevant technology for engineering applications. With the rapid development of various relevant interdisciplinary subjects and technologies, the research of multiphase flow and heat transfer is growing very fast nowadays than ever before. For instance, due to the rapid development in fabrication techniques, the miniaturization of devices and components is ever increasing in a wide range of engineering applications. Applications of microscale and nanoscale two-phase flow and thermal phenomena involved in traditional industries and highly specialized fields such as microfabricated fluidic systems, microelectronics, micro heat transfer, and high heat flux cooling have been becoming particularly important since the late twentieth century. However, microscale and nanoscale two-phase flow and heat transfer phenomena are quite different from those in macroscale and conventional systems. Over the past decades, quite a few studies have been conducted to understand the very complicated two-phase and heat transfer phenomena and to propose the relevant new mechanisms, models, and theory. However, there are still many issues to be clarified from both theoretical and applied aspects of this important field. Furthermore, interdisciplinary research areas relevant to multiphase flow and heat transfer are also rapidly developing. As a new research frontier of nanotechnology, the research of nanofluid two-phase flow and thermal physics is rapidly growing over the past decade. However, it has also posed new challenges because there are contradictory results in the available research. The fundamentals and mechanisms of nanofluid two-phase flow and heat transfer