Preliminary analysis of rapid boiling heat transfer

Rapid boiling is a transient heat transfer phenomenon which occurs when a subcooled or saturated liquid quickly enters a highly metastable state. The preliminary analyses of the rapid boiling heat transfer are carried out in the paper. A physical process model is suggested for describing the rapid boiling heat transfer and a boundary microlayer on the heating surface is put forward to explain the mechanism of nucleation and bubble dynamics in rapid boiling phenomena. Based on an one dimensional method for the rapid boiling heat transfer, temperature variations under high heat flux pulsed heating are calculated. In summary some useful conclusions are obtained, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.