BOILING AND CONDENSATION

Prabal Talukdar
Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering IIT Delhi E-mail: prabal@mech.iitd.ac.in

Introduction
Thermodynamics states that when the temperature of a liquid at a specified pressure is raised t th saturation t i d to the t ti temperature Tsat at that t t th t pressure, boiling occurs. Likewise, when the temperature of a vapor is lowered to Tsat, condensation occurs. Boiling and condensation differ from other forms of convection in that they depend on the latent heat of vaporization hfg of the fluid and the surface tension at the liquidvapor interface, in addition to the properties of the fluid in each phase. Heat transfer coefficients h associated with boiling and condensation are typically much higher than those encountered in other forms of convection processes that involve a single phase. free convection boiling, nucleate boiling, and film boiling, film condensation, dropwise condensation

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Boiling Heat Transfer

B ili i li id Boilingisaliquidtovaporphasechange h h processjustlikeevaporation,butthereare significantdifferencesbetweenthetwo. Evaporationoccursattheliquidvapor Evaporation occurs at the liquid vapor interfacewhenthevaporpressureisless thanthesaturationpressureoftheliquidata giventemperature given temperature

Examples of evaporation are the drying of clothes, fruits, and vegetables. g Note that evaporation involves no bubble formation or bubble motion

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Evaporation Vs. Boiling

Boiling,ontheotherhand, l h h h d occursatthesolidliquid interfacewhenaliquidisbrought interface when a liquid is brought intocontactwithasurface p maintainedatatemperatureTs sufficientlyabovethesaturation temperatureTsat oftheliquid
The boiling process is characterized by the rapid formation of vapor bubbles
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Bubble
Theboilingprocessesinpracticedo notoccurunderequilibrium d lb conditions. The temperature and pressure of the Thetemperatureandpressureofthe vaporinabubbleareusuallydifferent thanthoseoftheliquid. Thepressuredifferencebetweenthe liquidandthevaporisbalancedbythe surfacetensionattheinterface. Thetemperaturedifferencebetween thevaporinabubbleandthe surroundingliquidisthedrivingforce di li id i th d i i f forheattransferbetweenthetwo phases
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Heat Transfer
Whentheliquidisatalower h h li id i l temperaturethanthebubble,heatwill betransferredfromthebubbleinto theliquid,causingsomeofthevapor insidethebubbletocondenseandthe bubbletocollapseeventually. bubble to collapse eventually Whentheliquidisatahigher temperaturethanthebubble,heatwill betransferredfromtheliquidtothe bubble,causingthebubbletogrow andrisetothetopundertheinfluence and rise to the top under the influence ofbuoyancy.

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Pool Boiling and Flow Boiling

Boiling is called pool boiling in the absence of bulk fluid flow and flow boiling (or forced convection boiling) in the presence of it it. Pool Boiling

Flow Boiling

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Subcooled and Saturated Boiling

Pool and flow boiling are further classified as subcooled boiling or saturated boiling, depending on the bulk liquid temperature
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Saturated Pool Boiling g

There is sharp increase in temperature near to the surface but through most of the liquid, temperature remains close to saturation temperature i l t t ti t t

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Nukiyamas Experiment

The pioneering work on boiling was done in 1934 by S Nukiyama who S. Nukiyama, used electrically heated nichrome and platinum wires immersed in liquids in his experiments. Nukiyama noticed that boiling takes different forms, depending on the value of the excess temperature Texcess
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Boiling Regimes

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Boiling Curve
Typical boiling curve for water at 1 atm pressure

The specific shape of the curve depends on the fluidheating surface material combination and the fluid pressure, but it is practically independent of the geometry of the heating surface.
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Boiling Curve
Typical boiling curve for water at 1 atm pressure

Natural Convection Boiling (to Point A on the Boiling Curve)

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In practice, bubbles forms on the heating surface until the liquid is heated a few degrees above th saturation b the t ti temperature.
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Boiling Curve
Nucleate Boiling (between Points A and C)
Typical boiling curve for water at 1 atm pressure

The first bubbles start forming at point A of the boiling curve at various preferential sites on the heating surface. The bubbles form at an increasing rate at an increasing number of nucleation sites as we move along the boiling curve toward point C.

Two distinct Region: In I region A B i l t d i AB, isolated bubbles are formed at various preferential nucleation sites on the heated surface
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In region BC, the heater temperature is further increased, and bubbles form at such great rates at such a large number. Forms numerous continuous columns 14 of vapor in the liquid

Nucleate boiling is the most desirable boiling regime in practice because high heat transfer rates can be achieved in this regime with relatively small values of Texcess , typically under 30C for water

At large values of Texcess, the rate of evaporation at the heater surface reaches ti t th h t f h such high values that a large fraction of the heater surface is covered by bubbles, making it difficult for the liquid to reach the heater surface and wet it. Consequently, the heat flux increases at a lower rate (In the next fig. fig this trend can be seen) with increasing Texcess, and reaches a maximum at point C.
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PointPistheinflectionpointwhere hismaximum.hdecreaseswith h is maximum h decreases with increasingTexcess althoughheatfluxq continuestorise. q=hTexcess

NucleateBoilingin Nucleate Boiling in Jetsandcoloumn regime(BC) Prof.J.W.Westwater

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