Bubble formation of liquid boiling in microchannels

The thermodynamic aspects of phase transformation of liquids in microchannels were analyzed to further understand the boiling characteristics, and a nondimensional parameter and related criteria that determine the phase transition in microchannels were derived theoretically using classical phase stability theory. It was found that the size of the microchannels results in dramatically high heat fluxes for liquid nucleation when the microchannel is sufficiently small. This work provides theoretical substance for further investigating, especially quantitatively describing the heat and mass transfer process.