Bin Chen

By Zhi-Fu Zhou and Bin Chen

Cryogen spray cooling (CSC) has been successfully implemented in laser dermatology such as the treatment of port wine stain. It can protect epidermis from irreversible thermal injuries and increase laser energy, leading to the improvement in therapeutic outcomes. Different from traditional steady spray cooling, CSC is highly transient with short spurt duration (several tens of milliseconds). Besides, CSC can achieve flashing atomization and fine droplets with simple structure nozzles by rapid release of superheat. In this chapter, the mechanism of CSC flashing spray, spray and thermal characteristics of droplets, the measurement method of transient temperature and algorithms for heat flux estimation, and the dynamic surface heat transfer and its relation with spray characteristics are fully discussed. Finally, the heat transfer enhancement of CSC is introduced including alternative cryogens, new nozzles, and hypobaric pressure method to increase the cooling ability, which is essential to improve therapeutic outcome, especially for darkly pigmented human skin.

Part of the book: Advanced Cooling Technologies and Applications

By Bin Chen, Jia-Meng Tian and Zhi-Fu Zhou

Surface heat flux is an important parameter in various industrial applications, which is often estimated based on measured temperature by solving inverse heat conduction problem (IHCP). In this chapter, the available IHCP methods including sequential function specification (SFS), transfer function (TF) and Duhamel’s theorem were compared, taking the example of surface heat flux estimation during spray cooling. The Duhamel’s theorem was improved to solve 1D multi-layer ICHP. Considering the significant nonuniformity of heat transfer, the 2D filter solution method was proposed to estimate surface heat flux for 2D multi-layer mediums. The maximum heat flux calculated by the 1D method was underestimated by 60% than that calculated by 2D filter solution, indicating that the lateral heat transfer cannot be ignored. The cooling performances based on 2D filter solution demonstrated that substituting the environment friendly R1234yf for R134a can remarkably reduce global warming potential to <1, but its cooling capacity is insufficient. The effective heat flux of R1234yf can be enhanced by 18.8% by reducing the nozzle diameter and decreasing the back pressure, providing the theoretical basis for the clinical potential substitution of R1234yf with low global warming potential (GWP) for commercial R134a with high GWP in laser dermatology.

Part of the book: Inverse Heat Conduction and Heat Exchangers