Boiling induced atomization of liquid film produced by oblique jet impingement on superheated wall

•Droplets produced through the bubble bursting from the liquid film were found.•Droplet diameter from the bubble bursting was characterized.•Effect of thermal boundary layer and film thickness on droplet size was examined.•The loss of the liquid flow rate by the boiling induced atomization was negligible. For the thermal management of industrial devices, a reduction in the net coolant flow rate by droplet dispersion from a liquid film is important because it can cause unexpected thermal failure. To understand the process of droplet dispersion from a liquid film better, we experimentally and theoretically evaluated the characteristics of boiling-induced atomization in a liquid film formed by oblique jet impingement on a superheated wall. Atomization processes were visualized using magnified high-speed imaging using a backlight technique. In this study, two types of droplets were observed using high-speed-magnification imaging. These were large droplets that disintegrated from the ligament formed on a relatively high-temperature wall, and small droplets from the ligament formed via bubble bursting in the nucleate boiling regime. For the atomization induced by nucleate boiling, larger droplets were produced via bubble bursting further downstream from the impingement point because the bubble size and liquid film thickness increased. Finally, the total volume of the droplets produced by nucleate boiling was estimated from the frequency of bubble bursting and droplet size measured from the visualization results. The estimation results suggest that the ratio of the total volume flow rate of the ejected droplets to the injection flow rate of the liquid was negligible (2%). Thus, most of the injected liquid eventually reached the wetting front of the sheet, separating it from the wall before drying out.