Investigation of contact line dynamics under a vapor bubble at boiling on the transparent heater

Abstract

The paper presents the results of an experimental study of dynamics of vapor bubble growth and departure at pool boiling, obtained with the use of high-speed video recording and IR thermography. The study was carried out at saturated water boiling under the atmospheric pressure in the range of heat fluxes of 30−150 kW/m². To visualize the process and determine the growth rates of the outer bubble diameter, microlayer region and dry spot area, transpa-rent thin film heater with the thickness of 1 μm deposited on sapphire substrate was used in the experiments, and video recording was performed from the bottom side of the heating surface. To study integral heat transfer as well as local non-stationary thermal characteristics, high-speed infrared thermography with a frequency of up to 1000 FPS was used. High-speed video recording showed that after formation of vapor bubble and microlayer region, dry spot appears in a short time (up to 1 ms) under the vapor bubble. Various stages of contact line boundary propagation were ob-served. It was shown that at the initial stage before the development of small-scale perturbations, the dry spot propaga-tion rate is constant. It was also showed that the bubble departure stage begins after complete evaporation of liquid in the microlayer region.