TY - JOUR
TI - Experimental study on evaporation of defrosting residual droplet on fin surface and enhancement by electric field
AU - Xiang Mengting
AU - Wang Feng
AU - Dai Fei
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2026
VL - 30
IS - 3
SP - 2237
EP - 2248
PT - Article
AB - In order to improve defrosting efficiency of air source heat pump, it is crucial to reveal the evaporation characteristics of defrosting residual droplet on fin surface and find ways to enhance the evaporation performance. In this work, the evaporation of defrosting residual droplet is investigated experimentally under different influence factors according to the defrosting condition of air source heat pump. Meanwhile, the availability of the evaporation performance enhanced by electric field is evaluated. Experimental results show that the droplet evaporates on super-hydrophobic fin surface at constant contact angle and mixed modes, without the pinning stage; while it is constant contact diameter and mixed modes on bare fin surface. As the fin surface temperature increases or the droplet size decreases, the evaporation time of the droplet becomes shorter. The droplet evaporation time is 25.4% of that without electric field on bare fin surface, when the droplet volume is 1 µL and the electric intensity is 15 kV/cm. Interestingly, the electric field forces the droplet on superhydrophobic fin surface to jump, and it is no longer necessary to remove the droplet by evaporation. In a word, applied electric field can enhance the droplet evaporation, which will save defrosting energy consumption and improve defrosting efficiency of air source heat pump.
DO - 10.2298/TSCI250915219X
ER -