BOILING AND

CONDENSATAION

Prabal Talukdar
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical
Engineering
IIT Delhi
E-mail: prabal@mech.iitd.ac.in
 Transition Boiling
between Points C and D on the Boiling Curve

both nucleate and film

boiling partially occur

When, Texcess is increased past point C, the

heat flux
f decreases. This is because a large
fraction of the heater surface is covered by a
vapor film, which acts as an insulation due to
the low thermal conductivity y of the vapor
p
relative to that of the liquid
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 Film Boiling
Beyond point D

Inthisregiontheheater
surfaceiscompletelycovered
by a continuous stable vapor
byacontinuousstablevapor
film.
PointD,wheretheheatflux
reachesaminimum,iscalled
theLeidenfrost
h id f point,inhonor
i i h
ofJ.C.Leidenfrost

The heat transfer rate increases with increasingg

excess temperature as a result of heat transfer
from the heated surface to the liquid through the
vapor film by radiation, which becomes significant at
high temperatures

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Nukiyama has observed during his
experiments that a typical boiling process will
nott follow
f ll the
th boiling
b ili curve beyond
b d point
i tC
when the power applied to the nichrome wire
immersed in water exceeded q & max even slightly, the
wire temperature
p increased suddenlyy to the meltingg
point of the wire and burnout occurred beyond his
control.

With Platinum wire, he was able to maintain higher heat flux

& max without a burnout.
than q
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 Burnout Point

An attempt to increase the boiling heat

flux beyond the critical value often causes
the temperature of the heating element to
jump suddenly to a value that is above the
melting point, resulting in burnout.
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 Nukiyamabelievedthatthe
y
hysteresiseffectisthe
consequenceofapower
controlledmethodofheating
ll d h d fh i
whereTexcess isdependent
variable.
variable
Ifadevicecanbeusedwhich
permits control of Texcess asan
permitscontrolofT as an
independentvariableratherthan
heatflux,themissingportionof
theboilingcurvecanbeachieved.
Thiswassubsequentlyprovedby
DrewandMueller.
d ll

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 Heat Transfer
Correlations in Pool
Boiling
NucleateBoilingregime
In
Inthenucleateboilingregime,therate
the nucleate boiling regime the rate
ofheattransferstronglydependson
thenatureofnucleation(thenumber
ofactivenucleationsitesonthe
f ti l ti it th
surface,therateofbubbleformation
ateachsite,etc.),whichisdifficultto
predict
Rohsenowproposedin1952:

Csf = experimental constant that depends on surfacefluid

combination
n = experimental constant that depends on the fluid
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 Values from both the tables can be used for
an geometr
any geometry since it is found
fo nd that the rate of
heat transfer during nucleate boiling is
essentially independent of the geometry and
orientation of the heated surface.
surface
Properties should be evaluated at saturation
temperature

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 Peak Heat Flux
Themaximum(orcritical)heatfluxin
nucleatepoolboilingwasdetermined
p g
theoreticallybyS.S.Kutateladzein
Russiain1948andN.Zuberinthe
United States in 1958 using quite
UnitedStatesin1958usingquite
differentapproaches:

Constant -Value depends on heater geometry

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 Minimum Heat Flux

Minimumheatflux,whichoccursat
i i h fl hi h
theLeidenfrostpoint,isofpractical
interestsinceitrepresentsthelower
p
limitfortheheatfluxinthefilmboiling
regime.Usingthestabilitytheory,
Zuber derived the following expression
Zuberderivedthefollowingexpression
fortheminimumheatfluxforalarge
horizontalplate

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 Film Boiling
Theheatfluxforfilmboilingona
horizontalcylinderorsphereof
diameterDisgivenby

kv : Thermal
e a co conductivity
duct ty oof vapour
apou
Cfilm: 0.62 for horizontal Cylinders
0.67 for spheres

The
Thevaporpropertiesaretobeevaluatedat
vapor properties are to be evaluated at
thefilmtemperature,givenas
Tf =(Ts +Tsat)/2,whichistheaverage
temperature of the vapor film
temperatureofthevaporfilm.
Theliquidpropertiesandhfg aretobe
evaluatedatthesaturationtemperatureat
th
thespecifiedpressure
ifi d
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 Athighsurfacetemperatures(typically
above 300C) heat transfer across the
above300C),heattransferacrossthe
vaporfilmbyradiationbecomes
significant.
Treatingthevaporfilmasatransparent
mediumsandwichedbetweentwo
large parallel plates and approximating
largeparallelplatesandapproximating
theliquidasablackbody,radiation
heattransfercanbedeterminedfrom

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 Thetwomechanisms,convectionand
radiation heat transfer adversely affect
radiationheattransferadverselyaffect
eachother,causingthetotalheat
transfertobelessthantheirsum.
Forexample,theradiationheat
transferfromthesurfacetotheliquid
enhancestherateofevaporation,and
p ,
thusthethicknessofthevaporfilm,
whichimpedesconvectionheat
transfer 4 / 3
q& total = q& film + q& rad q& total
4/3 4/3

Simplifiedrelation:
Simplified relation:
3
q& total = q& film + q& rad
4
if q& rad < q& film

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 Flow Boiling
Inflowboiling,thefluidisforcedto
g,
movebyanexternalsourcesuchasa
pumpasitundergoesaphasechange
process.
process
Theboilinginthiscaseexhibitsthe
combinedeffectsofconvectionand
poolboiling

Note that the higher

the velocity, the
g
higher the nucleate
boiling heat flux and
the critical heat flux.

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 Flow Boiling
Inexperimentswithwater,criticalheat
fluxvaluesashighas35MW/m/ 22 have
beenobtained(comparethistothe
poolboilingvalueof1.3MW/m
p g / 2 at1
atmpressure)byincreasingthefluid
velocity
Internalflowboilingismuchmore
I t l fl b ili i h
complicatedinnaturebecausethereis
nofreesurfaceforthevaporto
escape,andthusboththeliquidand
thevaporareforcedtoflowtogether.
Thetwophaseflowinatubeexhibits
The two phase flow in a tube exhibits
differentflowboilingregimes,
dependingontherelativeamountsof
theliquidandthevaporphases.
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HighLow

Initially,theliquidissubcooled andheattransfertothe
liquidisbyforcedconvection.

Thenbubblesstartformingontheinnersurfacesofthe
tube,andthedetachedbubblesaredraftedintothe
mainstream.Thisgivesthefluidflowabubbly
appearance,andthusthenamebubblyflowregime
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HighLow

Asthefluidisheatedfurther,thebubblesgrowinsize
and eventually coalesce into slugs of vapor. Up to half of
andeventuallycoalesceintoslugsofvapor.Uptohalfof
thevolumeinthetubeinthisslugflowregimeis
occupiedbyvapor

Afterawhilethecoreoftheflowconsists
After a while the core of the flow consists
ofvaporonly,andtheliquidisconfinedonlyinthe
annularspacebetweenthevaporcoreandthetubewalls.
Thisistheannularflowregime,andveryhigh
h tt
heattransfercoefficientsarerealizedinthisregime
f ffi i t li d i thi i

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HighLow

Attheendofthemistflowregimewehavesaturated
vapor,whichbecomessuperheatedwithanyfurtherheat
transfer
f

Astheheatingcontinues,theannularliquidlayergets
thinner and thinner, and eventually dry spots start
thinnerandthinner,andeventuallydryspotsstart
toappearontheinnersurfacesofthetube.
Thistransitionregimecontinuesuntiltheinnersurface
ofthetubeiscompletelydry.

Anyliquidatthismomentisintheformofdroplets
suspendedinthevaporcore,whichresemblesamist,and
wehaveamistflowregimeuntilalltheliquiddroplets
are vaporized
arevaporized.

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