An experimental investigation of bubble nucleation of a refrigerant in pressurized boiling flows

An experimental investigation is performed to determine the effect of system pressure and heat flux on flow boiling and associated bubble characteristics of a refrigerant in a narrow vertical duct. A high-pressure flow boiling test loop was built and TLC (thermo-chromic liquid crystal) was applied to the back of the heater foil for high resolution and accurate measurement of heater surface temperature. Refrigerant R-134a is used as the test fluid at different pressures ranging from 690 to 827 kPa and different heat fluxes to quantify their influence in bubble characteristics such as bubble nucleation, growth, departure, and coalescence. Two synchronized high resolution and high-speed cameras are used to simultaneously capture TLC images as well as bubbling activities at high frame rates. By varying flow rate and system pressure, TLC and bubble images were captured and analyzed. Results show that the bubble generation frequency and size increase with heat flux. An increase in pressure from 690 to 827 kPa increased the bubble frequency and size by about 32 Hz and 20 μm, respectively. Bubble coalescence was also observed after departure from the nucleation site.     

Model for boiling explosion during rapid liquid heating

The process of rapid liquid heating with a linearly increasing boundary temperature condition has been simulated by applying the analytical solution of 1D semi-infinite heat conduction in association with the molecular theory of homogeneous nucleation boiling. A control volume having the size of a characteristic critical cluster at the liquid boundary is considered, and the corresponding energy balance equation is obtained by considering two parallel competing processes that take place inside the control volume, namely, transient external energy deposition and internal energy consumption due to bubble nucleation and subsequent growth. Depending on the instantaneous rate of external energy deposition and boiling heat consumption within the control volume, a particular state is defined as the boiling explosion condition in which bubble generation and growth cause the liquid sensible energy to decrease. The obtained results are presented in terms of the average liquid temperature rise within the control volume, maximum attainable liquid temperature before boiling explosion and the time required to achieve the condition of boiling explosion. The model is applied for the case of water heating at atmospheric pressure with initial and boundary conditions identical to those reported in the literature. Model predictions concerning boiling explosion are found to be in good agreement with the experimental observations. The boiling explosion condition as predicted by the present model is verified by comparing the heat flux across the liquid–vapor interface with the corresponding limit of maximum possible heat flux, q_max,max, at the time of boiling explosion. A comparative study between the actual heat flux and the limit of maximum heat flux, q_max,max, at the time of boiling explosion for different rates of boundary heating indicates that, with much higher boundary heating rates, it is possible to heat the liquid to a much higher temperature before theoretical instantaneous boiling explosion occurs.     

Features of boiling on an artificial surface — Bubble formation, wall temperature fluctuation and nucleation site interaction

The artificial surfaces are applied to study the pool boiling features, including the bubble behaviors, the surface temperature fluctuation, the heat transfer characteristics and nucleate site interaction. Three sets of experiments are carried out to investigate the influences of cavity shape, cavity size, cavity spacing on the boiling phenomena. Experimental results reveal that bubbling from the cylindrical as well as reentrant cavity is generally stable. The influence of cavity diameter on the bubble behaviors and the temperature fluctuation seems very weak while the effect of cavity depth cannot be neglected. As for the two cavity conditions, the bubble behaviors show the different features depending on the dimensionless cavity spacing. Three significant factors (thermal interaction, hydraulic interaction, bubble coalescence) control the nucleation site interaction, and the competition and dominance of the factors yield four interaction regimes.     

Features of Boiling on an Artificial Surface—Bubble Formation, Wall Temperature Fluctuation and Nucleation Site Interaction

The artificial surfaces are applied to study the pool boiling features, including the bubble behaviors, the surface temperature fluctuation, the heat transfer characteristics and nucleate site interaction. Three sets of experiments are carried out to investigate the influences of cavity shape, cavity size, cavity spacing on the boiling phenomena. Experimental results reveal that bubbling from the cylindrical as well as reentrant cavity is generally stable. The influence of cavity diameter on the bubble behaviors and the temperature fluctuation seems very weak while the effect of cavity depth cannot be neglected. As for the two cavity conditions, the bubble behaviors show the different features depending on the dimensionless cavity spacing. Three significant factors (thermal interaction, hydraulic interaction, bubble coalescence) control the nucleation site interaction, and the competition and dominance of the factors yield four interaction regimes.     

Time periodic flow boiling heat transfer of R-134a and associated bubble characteristics in a narrow annular duct due to flow rate oscillation

An experiment is conducted here to investigate the effects of the imposed time periodic refrigerant flow rate oscillation in the form of nearly a triangular wave on refrigeriant R-134a flow boiling heat transfer and associated bubble characteristics in a horizontal narrow annular duct with the duct gap fixed at 2.0 mm. The results indicate that when the imposed heat flux is close to that for the onset of stable flow boiling, intermittent flow boiling appears in which nucleate boiling on the heated surface does not exist in an entire periodic cycle. At somewhat higher heat flux persistent boiling prevails. Besides, the refrigerant flow rate oscillation only slightly affects the time-average boiling curves and heat transfer coefficients. Moreover, the heated wall temperature, bubble departure diameter and frequency, and active nucleation site density are found to oscillate periodically in time as well and at the same frequency as the imposed mass flux oscillation. Furthermore, in the persistent boiling the resulting heated wall temperature oscillation is stronger for a longer period and a larger amplitude of the mass flux oscillation. And for a larger amplitude of the mass flux oscillation, stronger temporal oscillations in the bubble characteristics are noted. The effects of the mass flux oscillation on the size of the departing bubble and active nucleation site density dominate over the bubble departure frequency, causing the heated wall temperature to decrease and heat transfer coefficient to increase at reducing mass flux in the flow boiling, opposing to that in the single-phase flow. But they are only mildly affected by the period of the mass flux oscillation. However, a short time lag in the wall temperature oscillation is also noted. Finally, a flow regime map is provided to delineate the boundaries separating different boiling regimes for the R-134a flow boiling in the annular duct.     

Bubble Nucleation and Behavior on Micro Square Heaters

In this study, micro square polysilicon heaters having dimensions of 65 × 65 μm² and 100 × 100 μm² were fabricated on a silicon dioxide layer, and bubble nucleation experiments on the heaters were performed. Bubble nucleation temperature was measured using a bridge circuit, and the photographs of bubble nucleation and subsequent growth were taken by a 35-mm camera with a μs flash unit. Measured bubble nucleation temperatures were found to be closer to the superheat limit of the working fluid of FC-72. A quasi-1-D solution obtained from the 2-D heat diffusion equation yielded proper temperature distribution of the square heaters at steady state; however, it failed to predict the temperature rise up to the steady state. The time-dependent temperatures similar to the observed values can be obtained with much lower value of thermal diffusivity than the bulk property of the polysilicon heater used. For the 100 × 100 μm² square heater, nucleation of several bubbles was observed, but for the 65 × 65 μm² heater, only that of one bubble was observed.     

Dynamics of boiling succeeding spontaneous nucleation on a rapidly heated small surface

The dynamics of boiling succeeding spontaneous nucleation on a small film heater immersed in ethyl alcohol are investigated at heating rates ranging from 10⁷ K/s to approximately 10⁹ K/s, under which spontaneous nucleation is dominant for the inception of boiling. Immediately after the concurrent generation of a large number of fine bubbles, a vapor film that covers the entire surface is formed by coalescence and rapidly expands to a single bubble. As the heating rate is increased, the coalesced bubble flattens and only a thin vapor film grows before cavitation collapse. Similar behaviors are also observed for water. Based on the observed results, a theoretical model of the dynamic bubble growth due to the self-evaporation of the superheated liquid layer, which develops before boiling incipience, is presented. The calculated results are compared with the observed results.     

Effects of Surface Wettability on Rapid Boiling and Bubble Nucleation: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Molecular dynamics simulation is conducted to study the effects of surface wettability on rapid boiling and bubble nucleation over smooth surface. The simple L-J liquid is heated by smooth metal surface with different conditions of wettability in cuboid simulation box. The results show that surface wettability has significant impact on phase transition of liquid film. When the heating temperature is 200 K, the rapid boiling occurs above strongly hydrophilic and weakly hydrophilic surfaces; however, only slow evaporation phenomenon occurs above weakly hydrophobic surface within 2.5-ns simulation time. The reason is that the interaction between argon and platinum atoms is stronger over hydrophilic surface, which has higher efficiency in heat transfer. Furthermore, based on the difference of surface wettability in heat transfer efficiency, the surface with nonuniform wettability is constructed, and the central region is more hydrophilic than surrounding region. The growing process of bubble nucleus can be completely observed above the more hydrophilic region.     

A three-dimensional analytical solution of the microheater temperature before bubble nucleation

A three-dimensional analytical solution of the microheater temperature based on heat diffusion equation is developed and compared with experimental results. Dimensionless parameters are introduced to analyze the temperature rise time and the distribution under steady state. To study the microheater temperatures before bubble nucleation, a set of working fluids and microheaters are considered. It is shown that the dimensionless time ξ₀ required for the temperature rise from room to 95% of the steady state temperature is about 75, not dependent on working fluids and microheaters. Heat transfer to the surrounding liquid is mainly caused by conduction, not by convection and radiation mechanisms. The microheater length affects the surface temperature uniformity, while its width influences the steady temperatures significantly, yielding the transition from heterogeneous to homogeneous nucleation mechanism from square microheaters to narrow line microheaters.     

Effects of molecule number on nucleate boiling in a system

Canonical molecular distribution was introduced to analyze characteristics of nucleate boiling when the liquid molecular number is very small. The minimum bulk phase volume in which phase change was able to occur was determined from the thermodynamic theory of bubble formation in a superheated liquid and from the energy distribution of the molecules in the bulk phase at a given temperature and pressure. The energy level of active molecules nearly independently distributing in systems was determined from conservation of mass. The maximum superheat temperature necessary for boiling nucleation was found to relate to the bulk phase volume with the temperature increasing as the volume decreased. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 34(4): 258–264, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20061     

Microscale heterogeneous boiling on smooth surfaces—from bubble nucleation to bubble dynamics

In this investigation, boiling incipience and bubble dynamics on a microheater with a geometry of 100 μm × 100 μm fabricated with MEMS technology are evaluated using a high-speed digital camera. For the purpose of comparison with conventional boiling heat transfer, boiling incipience and bubble dynamics are also studied on a carefully selected microheater with a fabricated defect (i.e., a microcavity on the heater surface). Of industrial interest are the effects of dissolved gases on boiling incipience and bubble dynamics, which are also discussed in detail. The possible nucleation temperature (or incipience temperature) is analyzed and discussed from the perspective of the measured bulk temperature of the microheater and a 3D heat conduction numerical model. The time-resolved bubble dynamics (i.e., the bubble size evolution, interface velocity and interface acceleration) are all presented along with high-speed digital images. Based upon this investigation, it is clear that explosive boiling can take place on a smooth surface no matter how slow the heating rate, and dissolved gases have a significant influence on the incipience temperature and bubble behavior. Furthermore, this study illustrates that the classical kinetics of boiling can explain the explosive boiling occurring on a smooth surface in principle and can provide a useful guide for the design of microscale heat transfer and/or MEMS devices. Although unexpected, due to the gravitational effects, Marangoni flow on the vapor–liquid interface induced by the temperature gradient was also observed.     

高热流密度下R113核态沸腾中汽化核心密度的识别

1引言核态沸腾是一种被工业界广泛应用的传热技术,在冶金、化工、动力等领域有广泛的发展前景。其优点是能以较低的温差传递较多的热量。在核态沸腾中有相变发生,相变发生的地方是成核地点[1],称为汽化核心。汽化核心的研究对于核态沸腾技术的发展具有非常重要的意义。传统的拍     

Nucleation site interaction between artificial cavities during nucleate pool boiling on silicon with integrated micro-heater and temperature micro-sensors

Nucleate boiling is commonly characterised as a very complex and elusive process. Many involved mechanisms are still not fully understood and more detailed consideration is needed. In this study, bubble growth from micro-fabricated artificial cavities with varied spacing on a horizontal 380 μm thick silicon wafer was investigated. The horizontally oriented boiling surface was heated by a thin resistance heater integrated on the rear of the silicon test section. The temperature was measured using 16 integrated micro-sensors situated on the boiling surface, each with an artificial cavity located in its geometrical centre. Experiments with three different spacings 1.5, 1.2 and 0.84 mm in between cavities with a nominal mouth diameter of 10 μm and a depth of 80 μm were undertaken. To conduct pool boiling experiments, the test section was mounted inside a closed stainless steel boiling chamber with optical access and completely immersed in degassed fluorinert FC-72. Bubble nucleation, growth and detachment at 0.5 and 1 bar absolute pressure were investigated using high-speed imaging. The effect of decreasing inter-site distance on bubble nucleation frequency, bubble departure frequency and diameter with increasing wall superheat is presented. Furthermore, the frequency of horizontal bubble coalescence was determined. The regions of influence on the measured frequencies and bubble departure diameter were compared with recently published findings.     

Availability analyses for heterogeneous nucleation under steady heating in pool boiling

Onset of heterogeneous nucleation is analyzed in this paper based on the criterion that change in the derivative of the availability function with respect to bubble radius is equal to zero. Comparisons of the predicted nucleation parameters obtained based on this criterion with those obtained previously based on the criterion that the change in Gibbs function equal to zero are made. It is found that the Gibbs function nucleation criterion is the necessary condition for onset of bubble nucleation while the availability nucleation criterion is the sufficient condition for onset of nucleation. Comparing with the Gibbs function criterion, the availability criterion predicts a larger nucleation radius at the same wall temperature and requires a higher nucleation temperature at the same heat flux although the differences in values are small.     

A BUBBLE MECHANISTIC MODEL FOR SUBCOOLED BOILING FLOW PREDICTIONS

Population balance equations combined with a three-dimensional two-fluid model are employed to predict subcooled boiling flow at low pressure in a vertical annular channel. The MUSIG (Multiple-Size-Group) model implemented in CFX4.4 is extended to account for the wall nucleation and condensation in the subcooled boiling regime. Comparison of model predictions against local measurements is made for the void fraction, bubble Sauter diameter, interfacial area concentration, bubble population density, and gas and liquid velocities covering a range of different mass and heat fluxes and inlet subcooling temperatures. Good agreement is achieved with the local radial void fraction, bubble Sauter diameter, interfacial area concentration, bubble population density, and liquid velocity profiles against measurements. However, further improvement is needed for the accurate prediction of the vapor velocity using the present bubble mechanistic model. A proposal to include an algebraic slip model to account for bubble separation in the MUSIG boiling model is presented.     

Gaseous bubble nucleation under shear flow

A decompression experiment of a water solution, saturated with methane gas at about 68 atm at room temperature, was done to investigate gas bubble nucleation under shear flow. A pressure reduction from 68 atm to atmospheric pressure is well below the decompression pressure required for spontaneous bubble nucleation of the methane gas, about 120 atm. The application of a shear flow from 5 min before to 1 min after the decompression induced active bubble formation and the final gas content in the solution was reduced substantially, even with the application of low shear rate of 25/s. However, the addition of the surfactant to the solution, which reduces interfacial tension considerably, hindered the bubble nucleation process.     

Superheating in nucleate boiling calculated by the heterogeneous nucleation theory

With the heterogeneous nucleation theory the superheating of the liquid boundary layer in nucleate boiling is described not only for the onset of nuclear boiling but also for the boiling crisis. The rate of superheat depends on the thermodynamic stability of the metastable liquid, which is influenced by the statistical fluctuations in the liquid and the nucleation at the solid surface. Because of the fact that the cavities acting as nuclei are too small for microscopic observation, the size and distribution function of the nuclei on the surface necessary for the determination of the probability of bubble formation cannot be detected by measuring techniques. The work of bubble formation reduced by the nuclei can be represented by a simple empirical function, whose coefficients are determined from boiling experiments. With that the heterogeneous nucleation theory describes the superheating of the liquid, which was checked on several fluids like refrigerants, liquid gases, organic liquids and water.     

Seed Bubble Guided Heat Transfer in a Single Microchannel

We use the seed bubble concept for manipulating the evaporative heat transfer in a heated microchannel with smooth surfaces. Using this concept, separation of bubble nucleation and growth is obtained to simplify the heat transfer system. Not only is the temperature excursion at the boiling incipience eliminated, but also the heat transfer system displays well-ordered and repeated flow characteristics. The heat transfer rates and wall temperatures can be controlled through adjusting the seed bubble frequency. The method provides a thermal management solution for microsystems and a tool for the study of the intricate flow and heat transfer.     

Effects of electric field on microbubble growth in a microchannel under pulse heating

Effects of imposed DC electric fields on microbubble growth generated from a rectangular Pt micro-heater (140 × 100 μm) fabricated on one wall of the microchannel under pulse heating are investigated experimentally in this paper. Bubble dynamics and surface temperature response of the microheater during pulse heating are observed and recorded using a high speed CCD and data acquisition system. Measurements of nucleation time and nucleation temperature and heat flux at boiling inception are taken at a fixed flow rate of 0.6 ml/min and pulse width of 1 ms, and with the electric field strength gradually increasing from zero. With increasing electric field strength, it is found that heat flux required for boiling inception is increased, boiling nucleation time is delayed, and nucleation temperature is reduced. Bubble growth is suppressed by the inward dielectrophoresis force acting at the vapor/water interface which is induced by the electric field. As a result, the diameter of the bubble becomes smaller, and the interface instability is suppressed during the bubble growth period. In addition, it is found that multiple nucleate sites appear on the surface of the micro-heater at high heat flux when the electric field is increased to a sufficiently high strength. A map showing regimes of single and multi nucleate sites in a plot of heat flux versus electric field strength is obtained.