Kinetic theory analysis of explosive boiling of a liquid droplet

The process of rapid phase transition from highly superheated liquid to vapor is frequently so fast and violent that it is called explosive boiling. The paper uses the kinetic theory of evaporation to study growth of an internal vapor bubble produced by homogeneous nucleation within a highly superheated liquid droplet boiling explosively in a hot medium. Evaporation/condensation coefficient is estimated by comparing the predictions of the theory with available experimental data. We show that the value of the evaporation coefficient can be very low for high reduced temperatures (0.06 for butane at 378 K), in agreement with recent molecular dynamic simulations. (C) 2000 The Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.