LAUSR

Abstract Surface wettability is one of the important metal surface characteristics which would affect boiling heat transfer performance of metal surfaces. In this study, different metal surfaces are irradiated by electron beam to investigate whether the surface wettability of metal surfaces can be increased by electron beam irradiation. The experimental results show that electron beam irradiation can greatly improve the surface wettability of various metal surfaces. The surface wettability of all surfaces increase as irradiation dose increase and some metal surfaces become quite hydrophilic when the irradiation dose reaches 3000 kGy. Besides, electron beam irradiation shows better effect on increasing the surface wettability of pre-oxidized metal surfaces. The results are discussed and analyzed considering the characteristics of oxidation porous layer. This finding shows that electron beam irradiation could be an effective way to increase the metal surface wettability and study the effect of surface wettability increase on boiling heat transfer.