Simulation of vapour bubble condensation using a 3D method

Abstract

In this work, simulation of a rising vapour bubble condensation in subcooled boiling flow conditions was performed using an interface tracking method, called the InterSection Marker (ISM) method which was previously developed by the authors to track the bubble interface. The rising bubble was condensing under the influence of the buoyancy and the surface tension forces. Immersed boundary method was used as a coupling mechanism between the ISM method and an in-house variable-density and variable-viscosity single-fluid flow solver. To imitate the condensation (i.e., heat and mass transfers from the vapour bubble), the source terms were modelled in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) governing equations. During the simulation, the condensing bubble properties such as bubble size, shape, and velocity were predicted for various initial bubble sizes and liquid subcooling values. The numerical results compared well against the past works, and the ISM method established itself to be an efficient, reliable, and viable alternative numerical tool for multiphase flow simulations involving heat and mass transfers across the interface.