Kinetic theory aspects of non-equilibrium liquid-vapor flows

Abstract

Kinetic theory of fluids plays an important role in understanding and modeling mass, momentum and energy transfer between the vapor and liquid phase in non-equilibrium two-phase flows, in which evaporation and/or condensation take place. The paper presents a review of the literature which focuses on kinetic modeling of the vapor-liquid interface. Starting from the studies of the Knudsen layer structure in evaporation and condensation, the problem of the formulation of kinetic boundary conditions is described and discussed. The formulation of models based on approximate kinetic descriptions of dense fluids is described and the model capabilities are assessed through the analysis of the results obtained by various authors.