Publication Date:
1985-07-01
Description:
The presence and behaviour of vaporous cavities are of major importance in many modern industrial applications where heat transfer, boiling or cavitation are involved. Following a sudden depressurization of a superheated fluid, the bubble growth rate controls the generated transients and heat transfer. Most existing computer modelling and prediction codes are based on individual spherical-bubble-growth studies and neglect possible interactions and collective phenomena. This paper addresses this collective behaviour using a singular-perturbation approach. The method of matched asymptotic expansions is used to describe the bubble growth, taking into account its interaction with a finite number of surrounding bubbles. A computer program is developed and the influence of the various parameters is studied numerically for the particular case of a symmetrical equal-size-bubble configuration and a thermal-boundary-layer approximation. A significant influence of these interactions on bubble growth and heat transfer is observed: Compared to an isolated-bubble case, the growth rate of a bubble is reduced in the presence of other bubbles, and the temperature drop at its wall is smaller. As a result the heat loss due to bubble growth is smaller. These effects increase with the number of interacting bubbles. © 1985, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.
Print ISSN:
0022-1120
Electronic ISSN:
1469-7645
Topics:
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Production Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Traffic Engineering, Precision Mechanics
,
Physics
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