Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130

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Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

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Pressure influence on unsteady film boiling of water-ethanol mixtures T

a,b,⁎ a a a a
Arslan Zabirov , Victor Yagov , Pavel Kanin , Vladislav Ryzantcev , Michael Vinogradov ,
Irina Molotovaa,b
a
National Research University “Moscow Power Engineering Institute”, Moscow, Russia
b
Joint Institution for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T A C T

Keywords: Film boiling of subcooled liquid is a process important for many technologies. However, there exists the specific
Film boiling film boiling regime accompanied by an enormous heat transfer coefficients, which has no common physical
Leidenfrost temperature explanation. This paper presents the new experimental results on influence of a liquid properties and its sub-
Micro-bubble boiling cooling on this high intensive boiling regime. The quenching a stainless steel sphere in subcooled water-ethanol
Mixture
mixtures of different compositions at different liquid temperatures and pressures up to 0.5 MPa was an object for
Heat transfer
study. The cooling process considerably intensifies with increase of pressure and of water mass fraction in the
mixture. At some conditions, the transition temperature corresponding to incipience of the intensive boiling
regime noticeably exceeded the critical temperature of the liquid; as direct liquid-solid contact is impossible in
this case, micro-bubble boiling regime obviously occurred. All results obtained are in qualitative agreement with
the model of incipience of the intensive film-boiling regime of subcooled liquid published previously by the
authors.

1. Introduction – Surface temperature is higher than the attainable limiting tem-

Unsteady film boiling of subcooled liquids is observed in both nat-
ural and technological processes. As an example for a natural phe-
nomenon, one can cite the process of interaction of lava with seawater
in the event of an eruption of a coastal or underwater volcano.
Examples of technological processes are quenching of metals and re-
flooding of the core of a nuclear reactor. Moreover, film boiling of
subcooled liquids could trigger vapour explosion, and the surface
temperature when film boiling loses stability plays a significant role for
this destructive phenomenon incipience.
Historically, the first studies of unsteady film boiling were asso-
ciated with the vapour explosion problem [1,2]. The authors conducted
quenching experiments on cooling of high temperature copper spheres
with protective nickel coating in subcooled water. Some experimental
realizations were characterized by huge heat transfer coefficients and,
accordingly, cooling rates (up to 1000 K/s), when the temperature of
the cooled surface exceeds the liquid homogeneous temperature by
hundreds of degrees. As a result, of the experimental study, a new
boiling regime was discovered. Based on visual observation, researchers
named it “microbubble boiling”. The main features of this boiling re-
gime are as follows [3,4]:
perature (close to the homogeneous nucleation temperature Thom);
– High cooling rates and removed heat fluxes (an order of magnitude
higher than for stable film boiling);
– Subcooling degree of water is higher than 22 K.
Over the past 10 years, in order to develop a physical model to
describe this process, our research group has conducted an extensive
series of experiments on various liquids and metals under different
conditions [5–13]. The results are summarized in Table 1 devoted to
stable film boiling and to microbubble boiling. The Table 1 includes
relations between cooling liquids, metals and experimental conditions
(subcooling ΔTsub and pressure P).
Stable film boiling is characterized by low HTC at stable vapour film
and is observed both in steady or unsteady conditions. From Table 1,
one can see that stable film boiling takes place at cooling of all used
metals with different properties (this is especially noticeable for the
thermal conductivity, which varies from 20 W/m/K for stainless steel to
400 W/m/K for copper). This regime occurs on ethanol, isopropanol
and FC-72 (perfluorohexane) in whole temperature range when they
exist in liquid state. Moreover, cooling in stable film boiling regime is
the longest part of the experiment. For water, the picture is rather
different. Stable film boiling regime occurs only in saturated and

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zabirov.arslan@gmail.com (A. Zabirov).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2020.110130
Received 8 December 2019; Received in revised form 21 March 2020; Accepted 29 March 2020
Available online 14 April 2020
0894-1777/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A. Zabirov, et al.
Table 1
Conditions of existence of stable film boiling and microbubble boiling regimes.
Liquid Metal
Water Stainless Steel, Nickel, Copper
Ethanol, Isopropanol Stainless Steel, Nickel, Copper
FC-72 Stainless Steel, Nickel, Copper
Water Stainless Steel, Nickel, Copper
Ethanol Stainless Steel
Ethanol/Water mixture Stainless Steel, Nickel
weakly subcooled water (ΔTsub < 22 K).
Until recently, it was believed that intensive boiling regime could be
observed only at cooling in water. However, our new experiments,
conducted in 2017–2018, demonstrate that this unusual boiling regime
occurs in other liquids too, but under specific conditions (see Table 1).
As for ethanol, we fixed the appearance of this regime at high pressures
(up to 1.0 MPa) on low conductive metal (stainless steel) [11]. At such
experiments we increased saturation temperature (and, correspond-
ingly, ΔTsub), while bulk liquid temperature remained constant. An-
other interesting result was obtained on water-ethanol and water-iso-
propanol mixtures [12]. When ethanol mass fraction in water becomes
lower than 50%, we observe microbubble boiling regime at very high
surface temperatures (higher than the critical one).
The main conclusion of all the experiments is that the microbubble
boiling strongly depends on liquid properties, metal properties, sub-
cooling value and the surface conditions. Based on analyses of the ex-
perimental results, in 2018, our scientific group proposed a model of
incipience of highly intensive film boiling regime in subcooled liquid.
The model is described in detail in [13]. The main idea of the model is
that the liquid waves can periodically touch the surface roughness
protrusions, which makes their temperature lower than the attainable
limiting temperature of a liquid, while the average surface temperate is
higher even the critical liquid temperature. A possibility of transition to
the intensive heat transfer mode depends on the relationship between
huge heat sink due to evaporation at the interline (the three phases
boundary) vicinity and heat supply due to unsteady thermal con-
ductance from the high-temperature body internal volume. In this
paper, the results of film boiling of water-ethanol mixture under high
pressures are presented. Therefore, according to this model, if there is
an increase of pressure and of water concentration in the mixture, the
increase of the transition temperature will take place. It should happen
due to the decrease of vapor film thickness and increase of subcooling
with pressure rise. Because of lack of experiments devoted to pressure
influence on quenching, these results may appear to be valuable for
theoretical analysis of the process.
Experiments on unsteady cooling at high pressures have not only
scientific, but also practical interest. For example, quenching in water
and aqueous solutions under elevated controlled pressure can be ef-
fectively used in the tool industry to intensify the processes of
quenching of tools and various parts made of high-carbon steels. We
should mention here the work of Kobasko [14], in which a new heat
treatment approach was described. The work has some experimental
results, but the experimental technique causes doubts.
Another important process, which takes place under high pressure,
is cooling of the reactor core in case of severe accidents. In this direc-
tion, new results have been obtained by Corradini’s group [15]. They
conducted quenching experiments under atmospheric and high pres-
sures using zircaloy rods in respect to accident tolerant fuel. Despite the
interesting results and an attempt to describe them theoretically, there
are very few experimental data points. Experiments [16,17] were per-
formed at a wide range of parameters (the pressures up to 210 bar [17])
using different liquids, rods and wires with very small diameters.
However, cooling in steady conditions makes results of [16,17] un-
suitable for analysis of microbubble boiling regime and heat treatment
or NPP safety applications.
2
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130
Conditions Boiling regime
ΔTsub < 22 K, P = 0.1–1.0 MPa Stable film boiling
ΔTsub ≤ 170 K, P = 0.1 MPa
ΔTsub ≤ 120 K, P < 1.0 MPa
ΔTsub ≥ 22 K, P = 0.1–1.0 MPa Microbubble boiling
ΔTsub ≥ 70 K, P > 0.5 MPa
ΔTsub ≥ 30 K, ωeth ≤ 50%, P = 0.1 MPa
Our own studies, published in [8,10], were aimed at a study of heat
transfer during unsteady film boiling of a nickel sphere in water [10], in
isopropanol and perfluorohexane [8] at pressures of up to 1 MPa. It has
been revealed that stable film boiling is the main regime of heat transfer
in nonaqueous liquids in the entire range of operational parameters.
The regimes of highly intensive film boiling heat transfer were observed
only in the experiments with subcooled water. Considering dependence
of boiling regime on cooling liquid, specifically on its thermophysical
properties, there is a natural desire to conduct experiments on binary
mixtures.
Unfortunately, we did not find any works, except ours [12], devoted
to unsteady film boiling of mixtures under atmospheric pressures.
Studies on the effect of pressure on the unsteady film boiling of mix-
tures are absent in principle. Thus, the motivation of the present work is
to fill this gap, because the results will have both practical and theo-
retical significance.
2. Experimental facility
In our experiments, we used an experimental facility (Fig. 1), which
allows to conduct experiments at high pressures [6,10]. The experi-
mental stand body, sealed experimental vessel, is made of stainless steel
tube (219 mm outer diameter with a wall thickness of 10 mm). In the
stand upper part a coil (2) of a high frequency induction heater (3) is
placed; the lower part is filled with a cooling liquid, the temperature of
which is maintained at a predetermined level by means of a thermostat
(8) and a coil pipe (7) immersed in the liquid. The liquid temperature
controlled by three thermocouples located along the height of the liquid
volume. Using a mixing device, we made the temperature of the liquid
uniform in volume. An electrical mixer provides the uniformity of a
temperature field in liquid. The heating zone is separated from the li-
quid by thin metal diaphragm (5), which protects the cooling medium
against heat radiation. At the beginning of the experiment, a metal
sphere (tested sample) (1) is mounted inside the coil (2) by means of
the lever-type displacement system (4). Heating is controlled by 5 type-
K thermocouples placed inside the sphere. We used water-ethanol
mixtures as a cooling liquid. The concentration of the mixture was set
using a float hydrometer with acceptable accuracy ( ± 1%). High
pressure was provided by inert gas (argon) from high-pressure vessel
(9). The pressure value is controlled by a manometer (10) with accu-
racy ± 0.01 MPa.
Tested sample is a metal sphere of 40 mm in diameter made of
stainless steel AISI 316. Four thermocouples are placed on surface
points (inside the sample) with polar angles 45, 90, 135 and 180°, and
one is in the sample center (Fig. 2). The thermocouple junctions (type
K) were welded flush with the surface by means of laser welding, their
cables passed through the holes and further to the data acquisition
system. The roughness of a metal ball was approximately 5 µm. The
maximum sample temperature in some experiments was about 750 °C.
We should note that during experiments, the surface was oxidized, but
due to argon atmosphere in the experimental vessel, it was not sig-
nificant. In a recent paper [18], it was shown that AISI 316 is very
resistant to oxidation even at high temperatures.
Previously, the mixture was composed in a separate container by
mixing distilled water and ethanol. The concentration was determined
A. Zabirov, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130

Fig. 1. . Experimental facility: (a) schematic of ex-

perimental stand: 1 – tested sample, 2 – HF-inductor
coil, 3 – HF-inductor, 4 – displacement system, 5 –
metallic diaphragm, 6 – experimental camera, 7 –
coil pipe, 8 – thermostat, 9 – vessel with inert gas, 10
– manometer, 11 – thermocouples, 12 – measuring
module, 13 – personal computer, 14 – video camera,
15 – halogen lamp; (b) experimental stand photo.

using a hydrometer. In current experimental series, we used pure

ethanol and water-ethanol mixtures of different fraction of ethanol: 80,
70, 60, 50, 40, 30 and 20%. The fixed liquid temperatures were in a
range from +10 up to +80 °C. The different compositions provide
obtaining a liquid with desired properties. Any property values lie be-
tween pure water and pure ethanol (except the viscosity of a mixture,
which has a local maximum).
According to the model [13], the liquid wave crests can periodically
touch the surface asperities; if their temperature is lower than the at-
tainable limiting temperature of a liquid, the local direct liquid/solid
contact becomes possible. During such a contact a narrow annular zone
near the solid/liquid/vapor boundary (interline) with huge intensity of
vaporization arises. Therefore, the maximum heat flux, which can be
removed from the hot surface at its contact with a liquid, is the fol-
Fig. 3. Dependence of calculated value of the local heat flux on the mixtures
lowing combination of liquid properties:
properties at different ethanol mass fraction and liquid temperatures: 1-+30 °C
qloc hLG σ / ν , and 2-+50 °C.

where hLG is latent heat of evaporation, σ is surface tension and ν is

in diameter, a cooling liquid is water. The upper part of the figure (shots
kinematic viscosity. The physical model is described in detail in [13].
a-d) shows the cooling process in subcooled water (ΔTsub = 60 K) and
As we can see from Fig. 3, qloc varies more than on order of mag-
the lower part of the figure (shots a′-d′) relates to cooling in near-sa-
nitude for different mixtures compositions.
turated water (ΔTsub = 10 K). The only difference is in the value of
The saturation temperature depends on both composition and
subcooling, but the cooling picture and intensity become completely
pressure. It varies approximately by 20 K for pure water to pure ethanol
different. Each consecutive shot corresponds to the surface temperature
and by 50 K for atmospheric pressure up to 0.5 MPa. This dependence is
drop by 200 K, starting point being 800 °C. However, the upper four
shown in the Fig. 4.
shots correspond to the total time duration (cooling time from 800 °C
To determine the temperature of microbubble boiling incipience, we
down to 200 °C) – 5 s, while the down shots - to 160 s. At the first stage
used thermocouples measurements and visualization by means of high-
of cooling, when surface temperature is 800 °C, the stable film boiling
speed video camera. For better description of the phenomenon (“mi-
occurs in the both experimental runs, but even under these conditions,
crobubble boiling”), to which this work is devoted, we present the video
the sphere surface in the highly subcooled water looks brighter. The
shots of two characteristic cooling modes. These shots illustrate well the
difference in the sphere colour at the same temperatures depends on the
effect of subcooling on incipience of the intensive boiling regime at
different thickness of the vapor films, as well as on the floating bubbles
quenching. The sample presented in Fig. 5, is a nickel sphere of 45 mm

Fig. 2. . Schematic of tested samples: (a) thermocouple junction connection; (b) general view of the sample; (c) photo of stainless steel sample with polished surface.

3
A. Zabirov, et al.
Fig. 4. Saturation temperature for different concentration of mixtures, at dif-
ferent pressures: 1–0.1 MPa, 2–0.2 MPa, 3–0.3 MPa, 4–0.4 MPa, 5–0.5 MPa.
near the interface in the case of the near-saturated liquid. In the latter
case, the hot surface is separated from an observer by the rather thick
steam film, and by two-phase layer with the rising steam-air bubbles. In
the highly subcooled liquid, the vapour film is smooth and very thin
even at the surface temperature close to 400 °C, so that one can observe
dull red light at this temperature, when intensive heat transfer regime
occurs at some parts of the surface. In the near-saturated liquid, the film
thickness is much thicker, and the instability waves are recognizable;
the stable film boiling keeps up to 400–300 °C, and only then the sur-
face temperature drops lower the critical temperature of water and
transition and nucleate boiling regimes occurred. Visually the red
colour of the sphere surface is observed only at its highest temperature.
Certainly, the above qualitative analysis cannot give exact information
on vapor film thickness; however, it gives a reasonable explanation of
the observed phenomena.
In the highly subcooled water, the temperature measurements re-
gistered the solid-liquid contacts at very high surface temperatures,
near 600 °C (Fig. 5-b). These contacts accompany with appearance of a
large number of the very tiny bubbles (microbubbles) described first in
Fig. 5. . The video frames of cooling process in water at different subcoolings: a-d – subcooled (ΔTsub = 60 K) and a′-d′ in near saturated (ΔTsub = 10 K) water. Each
frame corresponds to the different surface temperatures: a, a′ – 800 °C, b, b′ – 600 °C, c, c′ − 400 °C, d, d′ − 200 °C).
4
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130
Fig. 6. . Average surface thermograms of cooling of the stainless steel sphere in
pure ethanol at temperature +50 °C and under different pressures: 0.1 MPa–1,
0.2 MPa–2, 0.3 MPa–3, and 0.5 MPa–4.
[1,2]. In our opinion, at high water subcooling these bubbles can be air
filled, not steam ones. After the first solid-liquid contacts, the surface
thermocouples fixed a sharp temperature drop. Then, short time later
the quenching front spreads over the entire surface. Now it is customary
to call this process “micro-bubble boiling” or “intensive boiling re-
gime”. The surface temperature, when transition to the intensive
boiling regime starts, is hereinafter referred to as “transition tempera-
ture” (Ttr). We determine the presence of micro-bubble boiling regime
instrumentally, if temperature measurements show high cooling rates,
while the average surface temperature exceeds the temperature of the
attainable limiting temperature.
3. Results and discussion
First, we performed the experiments with pure ethanol at
Tliq = 50 °C under different pressures varied from 0.1 to 0.5 MPa. As
can be seen in Fig. 6, the pressure variation affects noticeably on the
quenching character. The duration of total cooling process is 83 sec for
ethanol under atmospheric pressure. An increase of pressure up to
0.2 MPa leads to essential intensification of the process, mainly due to
decreasing of the vapour film thickness. The total duration of cooling
process decreases by 30 s. The reason is an increase of the transition
temperature when stable film boiling is replaced by intensive cooling
mode. At 0.1 MPa this temperature (Ttr) is approximately 190 °C but at
A. Zabirov, et al.
Fig. 7. . The cooling process during quenching of stainless steel (a) and copper (b) spheres in water at 50 °C and atmospheric pressure. 1-center temperature, 2-
surface temperature and 3-saturation temperature.
0.2 MPa it grows up to 240 °C. This growth continues with increasing
pressure, at 0.3 and 0.5 MPa the transition temperature reaches 280
and 290 °C, while the critical temperature of ethanol is 241 °C. It means
that the intensive boiling regime starts when surface temperature ex-
ceeds critical liquid temperature.
Cooling in pure distilled water is another extreme condition. Fig. 7
presented the cooling thermograms obtained during quenching of the
stainless steel (a) and the copper (b) spheres in water. The spheres have
the same size (40 mm in diameter) and the cooling conditions are the
same (Tliq = 50 °C and p = 0.1 MPa). It is clear that the cooling process
is more intensive in comparison with pure ethanol. Moreover, despite
the surface temperature is higher than the attainable limiting tem-
perature of a liquid by hundreds degrees, the intensive cooling mode
differs from stable film boiling, primarily with extremely high heat
transfer coefficients and cooling rates. Certainly, the intensive cooling
mode cannot be the nucleate boiling, since at the high surface tem-
peratures liquid-wall contacts are thermodynamically impossible (in
the nucleate boiling regime, even near the crisis, more than 90% of the
surface is in a contact with the liquid). Thus, the authors of the article,
following to the pioneers of this phenomenon finding G.F. Hewitt and
G.B.R. Kenning, consistently uphold the point of view that this is a
special mode, the so-called “micro-bubble boiling ”. The position of the
authors is presented in detail in the paper [6]. It should be noted that
the transition temperature for stainless steel (low thermal conductive
metal) could vary from experiment to experiment by tens of degrees
under the same conditions. For copper (high thermal conductive metal)
these variations are much less. For the both metals, variability of
transition temperature grows with increase of liquid subcooling.
Moreover, Fig. 7 presented the thermograms for the surface and the
center of the spheres. It is clear that the difference between the surface
and the center temperatures is much higher for stainless steel due its
lower thermal effusivity. Comparing thermograms (a) and (b) it could
be noted that it is impossible to accurate measure the transition tem-
perature using only central thermocouple, especially for metals with
low thermal conductivity. Moreover, due to the strong temperature
gradient between the center and the surface, the surface temperature
for a long time kept at the level near the saturation temperature and
only then tends to liquid temperature. Nevertheless, the main purpose
of this work is to study film boiling regime and its transition to the
intensive one, therefore, the part of quenching curve related to free
convection is not of scientific interest. That is why we deliberately cut
off these parts of the curves so as not to overload the figures.
The comparative analysis of the results in Figs. 6 and 7 obviously
confirms the model of [13] in relation to influence of a coolant
5
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130
properties that is of qloc and of thermal effusivity of a metal on the
incipience of micro-bubble boiling regime in cooling of high-tempera-
ture spheres. The experiments with the ethanol/water mixtures allowed
to vary consciously the coolant properties, which effect on the cooling
process.
Before proceeding directly to study of the pressure effect on mix-
tures of different concentrations, it is reasonable to understand how the
coolant temperature Tliq affects the cooling process. Fig. 8 shows
cooling thermograms obtained for a mixture with a mass fraction of
ethanol ωeth = 80% at three different liquid temperatures: Tliq = 50 °C
(a), 30 °C (b) and 10 °C (c). For each temperature, experiments were
conducted at different pressures from 0.1 to 0.5 MPa. The initial tem-
perature of the test sample for all the experimental runs was 400 °C. The
graph clearly shows that with the liquid temperature decrease, cooling
time also decreases. For example, at atmospheric pressure the cooling
time (while the surface temperature drops down to the near saturation
temperature) for Tliq = 50 °C (Fig. 6a-1) is 50 sec, while for
Tliq = +30 °C (Fig. 6b-1) it is 36 sec, and for the “coldest” case, when
Tliq = 10 °C (Fig. 6 c-1) it is only 25 sec. In other words, when the
temperature of the mixture decreases by 40 K, the cooling time is
halved. As the pressure increases, the cooling time also decreases. First,
this is due to the increase in the temperature of the beginning of the
intensive cooling regime. In this case, decrease of the mixture tem-
perature and increase of pressure act in the same direction. Relative
decrease of total cooling time with increasing pressure is approximately
the same for different liquid temperatures.
Fig. 9 demonstrates influence of the mixture composition on cooling
under different pressures. In all the experiments we fixed the liquid
temperature at a constant value Tliq = 50 °C. The initial temperature of
the sample was Tin = 400 °C for ωeth = 80 and 70%, Tin = 500 °C for
ωeth = 60% and Tin = 600 °C for ωeth = 50%. An analysis of the in-
fluence of the composition at the atmospheric pressure (curves 1-a, b, c,
d) shows an unambiguous dependence: the higher the water fraction in
the mixture, the more intensive cooling is. For example, reducing the
mass fraction of alcohol in the mixture by 10% (from 80 to 70%), the
total cooling time is reduced three times (from 50 to 16 sec). With
pressure increase, the total cooling time decreases. In a 70% mixture,
the cooling time at pressure 0.1 MPa is 16 sec, but with pressure in-
crease up to 0.2 MPa, the time reduces to 5 sec. At the maximal pres-
sure, 0.5 MPa, the sample surface is cooled down the saturation tem-
perature for less than 2 sec that is quite remarkable. First, this is due to
an increase of the surface transition temperature, at which intensive
cooling starts.
One can see that for mixture of ωeth = 50%, the transition
A. Zabirov, et al.
Fig. 8. The average surface thermograms obtained in water–ethanol mixture
ωeth = 80% at different bulk temperatures (a – +50 °C, b - +30 °C, c - +10 °C)
and pressures (1 – 0.1 MPa, 2 – 0.2 MPa, 3 – 0.3 MPa, 4 – 0.5 MPa).
temperature Ttr = 550 °C, which is much higher than not only the at-
tainable limiting temperature of cooling liquid, but also its critical
temperature. Relying on experimental results, we can state that the
cooling process becomes more intensive due to an increase of the sur-
face temperature, at which stable film boiling is replaced by intensive
cooling regime. The HTC differs by an order of magnitude in these two
boiling modes, so, as sooner the intensive boiling regime begins, the
more intensive total cooling process will be. In turn, this temperature
Fig. 9. The average surface temperature variation of the cooled sphere in water/ethanol mixture of different concentration (ωeth: a – 80%, b – 70%, c – 60%, d – 50%)
at different pressures (1 – 0.1 MPa, 2 – 0.2 MPa, 3 – 0.3 MPa, 4 – 0.5 MPa). The fixed mixtures temperature is 50 °C.
6
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130
Fig. 10. Variation of the calculated heat flux values during the sphere cooling
in water/ethanol mixtures of different composition: (ωeth: a – 80%, b – 60%,) at
different pressures (1 – 0.1 MPa, 2 – 0.2 MPa, 3 – 0.3 MPa, 4 – 0.5 MPa). The
fixed mixtures temperature is 50 °C.
depends both on the mixture composition and on subcooling related to
the ambient pressure: the higher concentration of water and the higher
subcooling (pressure), the higher the transition temperature.
A problem of restoring the heat flux at the sphere surface based on
the results of the temperature measurement requires solving an inverse
heat conduction problem (IHCP). Basing on the average surface tem-
peratures, we have solved the 1D inverse heat conduction problem, as it
was described in [19], and have calculated the average values of heat
transfer coefficient during cooling process. Some calculations results
are presented in Fig. 10. An actual cooling process in the co-ordinates of
the figure corresponds to moving from right to left. The horizontal
sections of the calculated curves in their right part correspond to stable
film boiling with low level of heat transfer intensity. As is seen, the
value of the heat flux increases with the water fraction increase in the
mixture. In the mixture of ωeth = 80%, the average heat flux in stable
film boiling regime at atmospheric pressure is about q = 80 kW/m2,
while in mixture of ωeth = 60% it is about q = 210 kW/m2. For the
fixed mixture composition, heat flux grows with pressure. However, in
A. Zabirov, et al. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130

the regime of stable film boiling the maximal heat flux does not exceed Table 2
300 kW/m2. The same tendencies correspond to other mixture com- The experimental values of the transition temperature during cooling the
positions. stainless steel sphere in water/ethanol mixtures of different composition, at
The sharp increase of heat flux in Fig. 10 reflects the variation of different pressures and liquid subcoolings.
heat transfer mode, the temperature heads, ΔTtr = Ttr-Ts, correspond to Ωeth, % P, MPa Ts, °C ΔTsub, K Tcr, °C ΔTtr = Ttr – Ts ΔTtr, calc
appearance of almost vertical sections in the thermograms of Figs. 6–8.
80 0,1 79 69 264 231 214
At atmospheric pressure incipience of the intensive cooling occurred at
0,1 49 173 210
ΔTtr = 145 K for ωeth = 80% and 175 K for ωeth = 60%, this corre- 0,1 29 171 204
sponds to the transition boiling. The maximal heat flux in this case is 0,2 97 87 229 197
equal approximately to the critical heat flux in pool boiling (0.85 and 0,2 77 163 195
1.3 MW/m2 correspondingly). At the higher pressure the liquid sub- 0,2 47 210 190
0,3 110 100 208 183
cooling increases, so that increases the transition temperature. At
0,3 80 186 180
p = 0.5 MPa during cooling in the mixture ωeth = 80% this tempera- 0,3 60 194 177
ture is about 330 °C, i.e. higher than Tlim, this allows to consider the 0,5 126 116 213 161
heat transfer mode after transition as micro-bubble boiling. The max- 0,5 96 209 159
0,5 76 194 156
imal heat flux in this regime ≈1.2 MW/m2. In the mixture of
0,7 138 128 212 142
ωeth = 60% at the same pressure the transient temperature (~390 °C) 70 0,1 80 70 276 250 238
exceeds the critical one for pure water, all the more so for the mixture. 0,1 50 242 233
In this case, there is no doubts that the cooling mode corresponds to 0,1 30 224 226
intensive heat transfer regime of film boiling in subcooled liquid. Heat 0,2 98 88 251 221
0,2 68 242 217
flux reach the great value of 2.3 MW/m2.
0,2 48 245 213
In general, at the water mass fraction in mixtures higher than 50%, 0,3 111 101 242 207
in all the experimental runs the cooling process became intensive. At 0,3 81 241 204
the mixture temperature Tliq ≤ 50 °C it was difficult to detect the 0,3 61 245 201
transition temperature Ttr, because the regime of micro-bubble boiling 60 0,1 81 31 289 282 252
0,2 99 49 271 239
started immediately after immersing the hot sample into a liquid. In this 0,3 112 62 288 228
regard, the experiments with the mixtures of rather low alcohol frac- 0,5 128 78 352 208
tions at near-saturated temperature Tliq = 80 °C present a specific in- 50 0,1 82 32 302 360 282
terest. Fig. 11 depicts the cooling thermograms of the stainless sphere 0,2 100 50 410 271
0,3 113 63 437 260
with the initial temperature Tw = 500 °C for ωeth = 40% (Fig. 10-a),
40 0,1 83 3 315 137 274
and Tw = 550 °C for ωeth = 30% (Fig. 10-b). 0,3 115 35 278 285
Under atmospheric pressure, the quenching process for the both 20 0,1 87 7 344 263 369
compositions is similar one in its low intensity of the stable film boiling 0,2 106 26 329 385
in saturated liquid (curves 1 in Fig. 11). Heat transfer coefficients in
these regimes agree satisfactorily with calculations according to the
semiempirical equation of [9]. Pressure increase leads to liquid sub- experimental runs. For ωeth ≤ 40% intensive boiling regime starts
cooling growth and to essential change of the cooling process. Even at immediately after immersing of hot sample into liquid, so to detect the
0.2 MPa, when liquid subcooling slightly exceeds 20 K, the vapor film Ttr we performed experiments at low subcoolings. Naturally, the tran-
becomes unstable, the temperature oscillations occur that are visible sition temperature increases with pressure together with the saturation
even at the averaged thermograms 2 in Fig. 10. Cooling time decreases temperature due to liquid subcooling increase (at the fixed liquid
twice. At p = 0.3 MPa and ωeth = 40% sharp temperature fall is ob- temperature). Certainly, as is usual for boiling, especially for unsteady
served at the cooling start; obviously, in this case the transition tem- boiling, the process regularities become apparent statistically; the
perature is higher than the initial one of the sphere (500 °C). There is no transition temperature head (ΔTtr) practically sometimes can even de-
doubt that under high pressures (high liquid subcoolings), the cooling crease. However, a general trend of increasing the temperature of the
process in the mixtures with high water fractions occurs at micro- incipience of the intensive cooling regime with pressure increase and
bubble boiling regime. The values of the transition surface temperature increase of the water fraction in the mixture is obvious. The experi-
(from stable film boiling to intensive heat transfer regime) are sum- mental results, collected in the Table 2 demonstrates, that at some
marized in Table 2. conditions the values of the temperature heads ΔTtr (and the surface
The Table consists of seven columns: mixture composition (ωeth), temperature associated with it) when stable film boiling turns to in-
ambient pressure (p), saturation temperature (Ts), liquid subcooling tensive boiling mode, are comparable to or even exceeds the critical
(ΔTsub), liquid critical temperature (Tcr), temperature head in a tran- temperature of the liquid. As for physical reason and main mechanisms
sition moment in the experiments (ΔTtr), and the corresponding com- of these phenomena, the approximate physical model proposed in [13]
puted value (ΔTtr, calc). The values of ΔTtr are average for two or three qualitatively explains them. As is seen in Table 2, the calculated values

Fig. 11. The average surface temperature variation of the cooled sphere in water/ethanol mixture of different composition (ωeth: a – 40%, b – 30%) at different
pressures (1 – 0.1 MPa, 2 – 0.2 MPa, 3 – 0.3 MPa). The fixed mixtures temperature is 80 °C.

7
A. Zabirov, et al.
of ΔTtr, calc are in good agreement with the experimental results.
However, within the model of [13] the effect of a liquid subcooling was
not founded, it was involved in the equation as an empirical di-
mensionless parameter. One can see that at the elevated pressures the
calculated ΔTtr, calc values are lower than the measured ones. Nowadays
the work on the model continues, and we intend to present soon the
new results in this direction.
The current work demonstrates that varying composition of a liquid
binary mixture and an ambient pressure, it is possible controlling the
transition temperature and heat transfer intensity during quenching.
This can be used, probably, in some technologies of metal parts thermal
treatment.
4. Conclusions
The large volume of the experimental data on regularities of
quenching the stainless steel sphere in subcooled water-ethanol mix-
tures of different composition has been first obtained. An initial tem-
perature of the sphere was much higher than the critical temperature of
the cooling liquid. In the current experiments, we changed the prop-
erties of liquid using mixtures of different compositions and the liquid
subcoolings by changing the temperature of liquid and pressure.
Ethanol mass fraction in the mixture varied from 20% to 80%; cooling
process is studied at different liquid temperatures (Tliq = 10, 30, 50 and
80 °C) and pressures varied from 0.1 up to 0.5 MPa. The experimental
results can draw the following conclusions:
• Under atmospheric pressure, decrease of ethanol mass fraction in
the mixture intensifies the cooling process due to both enhancement
of heat transfer in stable film boiling and to increase of the transition
temperature (Ttr). At ethanol mass fraction in the mixture lower
50%, an intensive heat transfer regime that is typical for cooling in
pure subcooled water is observed. Increase of liquid subcooling
(ΔTsub) leads to intensification of stable film boiling heat transfer
and elevates the transition temperature of cooling process; this
agrees with the results of the theoretical analysis of [9,13].
• The properties of a liquid practically do not change with increasing
pressure. Increase of pressure promotes the cooling intensity mainly
due to a liquid subcooling enlargement; the higher the pressure the
higher is the transition temperature. Besides, the transition tem-
perature grows with water mass fraction increase in the mixture; at
water fraction in the mixture higher 50% under elevated pressures
the intensive heat transfer regime of film boiling starts immediately
after immersing the tested sample into the cooling media.
• The transition temperature (Ttr) exceeds the attainable limiting
temperature and even the critical one of the liquid at the elevated
pressures and at water fraction in the mixtures larger 50%. In this
relation, the regularities of cooling in the mixtures are similar to the
results for pure liquids, which have been analysed in [13].
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Arslan Zabirov: Methodology, Writing - original draft, Supervision.
Victor Yagov: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing. Pavel
Kanin: Validation. Vladislav Ryzantcev: Validation, Investigation.
Michael Vinogradov: Software, Formal analysis. Irina Molotova:
Investigation, Resources.
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 118 (2020) 110130
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted in the National Research University
“Moscow Power Engineering Institute” at the expense of the Russian
Science Foundation, Grant No. 17-79-20402.
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