The correction to the nonlinear inviscid model of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability suppressed by a phase transition

Abstract

The Rayleigh–Taylor instability, complicated by heat and mass transfer, is studied for a thin vapor film covering the horizontal surface of a flat heater, which is immersed in a subcooled volume of liquid. A correction to the nonlinear inviscid model of the instability suppression by a phase transition is proposed. It is based on the fact that, at finite Prandtl numbers, the strength of the phase transition effect can have the limitation described before for the linear problem. It is shown that the nonlinearity alone, without taking the viscosity into account, is able to stabilize the thin vapor film, but only for the situations when the convective heat exchange in the liquid obeys the Newton–Richman law.