Momentum effects in steady nucleate pool boiling during microgravity

Abstract

Pool boiling experiments were conducted in microgravity on five space shuttle flights, using a flat plate heater consisting of a semitransparent thin gold film deposited on a quartz substrate that also acted as a resistance thermometer. The test fluid was R-113, and the vapor bubble behavior at the heater surface was photographed from beneath as well as from the side. Each flight consisted of a matrix of three levels of heat flux and three levels of subcooling. In 26 of the total of 45 experiments conditions of steady-state pool boiling were achieved under certain combinations of heat flux and liquid subcooling. In many of the 26 cases, it was observed from the 16-mm movie films that a large vapor bubble formed, remaining slightly removed from the heater surface, and that subsequent vapor bubbles nucleate and grow on the heater surface. Coalescence occurs upon making contact with the large bubble, which thus acts as a vapor reservoir. Recently, measurements of the frequencies and sizes of the small vapor bubbles as they coalesced with the large bubble permitted computation of the associated momentum transfer. The transient forces obtained are presented here. Where these arise from the conversion of the surface energy in the small vapor bubble to kinetic energy acting away from the solid heater surface, they counter the Marangoni convection due to the temperature gradients normal to the heater surface. This Marangoni convection would otherwise impel the large vapor bubble toward the heater surface and result in dryout and unsteady heat transfer.