Mesoscale simulation of pool boiling on a cylinder heater under controlled wall temperature

Abstract

In this study, a phase–change LB model was adopted to simulate the pool boiling on a cylinder. The simulation results showed that the phase-change phenomenon occurred firstly at the top of the cylinder and produced the bubble at a low heating temperature on hydrophilic surface. With the increase of heating temperature, new nucleation sites appeared on both sides of the cylinder. And under the action of buoyancy, the bubbles on both sides risen to the top and merged and then departed. When the heating temperature reached a certain level, a bubble appeared at the bottom of the cylinder and grown steadily. Eventually, the bottom bubble would wrap the cylinder completely so the cylinder entered the film boiling. For hydrophilic surface, the temperature and heat flux over the cylinder surface would vary with the formation of bubble which was similar with flat heater. And we conducted the boiling curve (from the natural convection to the film boiling) on the cylinder by the numerical simulation.