Numerical simulation of bubble dynamics and heat transfer in the 2D saturated pool boiling from a circular surface

Abstract

In this paper, the saturated pool boiling heat transfer from a heated circular surface is investigated numerically based on the popular lattice Boltzmann phase-change method. The crucial interfacial phenomena, including the bubble growth, departure, coalescence, and rising under different wall superheats, wettabilities, and heater sizes are studied, and the corresponding heat transfer characteristics within these bubble dynamics are also revealed. The numerical experiments indicate that at low wall superheats the bubble nucleation occurs only at the top of the heated circle. With the increase in the wall superheat, the sides and the bottom of the heated circle also become nucleate sites. As the wall superheats continue to increase, more and more nucleate sites are activated so that the heated circle is wrapped by the vapor film early in the boiling process. And the average heat flux varies periodically with time corresponding to bubble dynamics in nucleation boiling regime. It reaches a steady state of film boiling regime after the stable vapor film is generated from the heated circular. It is also found that hydrophobic surface is conducive to the onset of boiling. However, it leads to a low critical heat flux and incurs film boiling at a lower wall superheat, which is also observed in both experimental and numerical studies. On the other hand, the boiling regimes can undergo the transition from nucleate boiling regime to film boiling regime at the same wall superheat with the increase in the heater size. In addition, under various wall superheats and wettabilities, the bubble departure diameters from the circular surface are smaller than those from the flat surface, while the bubble departure periods from the circular surface are less than those from the flat surface one. Finally, the saturated boiling curves from the circular surface for different wall wettabilities, heater sizes, liquid–vapor density ratios, and heating modes are also achieved.