Cavity-to-cavity interaction in nucleate boiling. The effect of heat conduction within the heater

This paper presents a numerical study aimed at analyzing bubble behavior as a function of site location. The effects of site distribution on the nucleate boiling curve are examined. Simple local-instantaneous models that mimic the bubble behavior on the boiling surface were implemented into a three-dimensional finite control volume conduction code. For a given site density, sample cases were for uniform and nonuniform site distribution. Our results indicate considerable deviation from linearized theories that always assume a uniform distribution. It is shown that bubble emission frequency is a strong function of site location. Consequently, the bubble flux density is shown to deviate from a simple periodic behavior with increasing nonuniformity in site distribution. This study further indicates that a uniform site distribution results in minimum area- and time-averaged surface superheat and minimum temperature variations on the boiling surface. As the distribution becomes less uniform, average surface temperature and surface temperature variations along the boiling surface increase.