Experimental and numerical study of radiant heat protection of a composite material wall by water film

Abstract

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.

Water films are used in a wide range of applications due to their cooling properties. They also involve relatively small amount of water, what can be very interesting in on-board applications. This study focuses on the protection by a water film of a composite wall submitted to a prescribed incident radiant beat flux. Experiments were conducted for a fixed flux and for different water flows. Temperature of the wall and characteristic time of the system were measured. A 2D unsteady numerical model of the phenomena was also developed. The experiments show that the water film can protect the wall until a critical flow where the film begins to dry. The model gives results in good agreements with those of the experiments in steady-state.