Saturated pool nucleate boiling mechanisms at high heat fluxes

A new model has been developed where the coupled transient two-dimensional conduction equation is solved for the heater and the liquid macrolayer, while allowing for the time-wise thinning of the macrolayer. The major conclusions are: (1) dominant evaporation occurs at the liquid-vapor-solid contact point (triple point) and is required to match boiling curve behavior quantitatively; (2) evaporation at the stem interface and bubble-macrolayer interface is negligible (except near critical heat flux); and (3) the results are sensitive to closure relationships, especially to the active site-density correlation.