Study on boiling heat transfer in a shear flow through the lattice Boltzmann method

Abstract

The liquid–vapor phase change and the boiling heat transfer induced by a microheater in a fluid are numerically studied through a two-phase lattice Boltzmann method. The fluid is subjected to simple shear. The effects of the gravity force, flow strength, and wall wettability are taken into account. A direct comparison between the cases of pool boiling and flow boiling is made in terms of the bubble release period, flow features, and the temperature of the microheater. In particular, it is shown that the flow motion has a negligible effect on the bubble release period for hydrophilic surfaces. By contrast, the bubble departure is considerably accelerated by the shear flow for hydrophobic surfaces which is associated with the formation of “bubble neck.”