Welcome to the Phase Change Heat Transfer Laboratory at the University of Maryland, Department of Mechanical Engineering. The work in this laboratory primarily concerns investigating fundamental mechanisms by which heat is transferred using liquid-vapor phase change processes.  Phase change allows tremendous amounts of energy to be transferred with little increase in temperature due to the latent heat of vaporization. Applications include electronic cooling on earth and in space, the design of compact heat exchangers, nuclear reactor cooling, heat pipes, and many others.   The processes currently being investigated in this laboratory are boiling in earth and microgravity environments, boiling within graphite foams, and droplet and spray cooling. Many of the above projects involve the use of a Microheater Array to measure the local heat flux.

Additional projects concern the development of a high temperature radiation absorption coefficient database for fuels and the development an inverse heat conduction technique that does not impact boundary conditions of a body.

Click on one of the links at the top of the page to find more information about each of these projects and the technologies used. Enjoy your stay.

Jungho Kim