The mechanism of void formation in initially subcooled systems

Abstract

When an initially subcooled, water filled system undergoes a transient in heat flux or pressure such that bubbles form, the most important variable which determines the volume of the resulting void is the number of bubbles that is formed. In this report the number of bubbles that are formed is shown to be a function of the surface micro-configuration, the contact angle and the history. A method of specifying the history is developed, experiments are run and the general correctness of the history specification is shown to be correct. Order of magnitude values of the limiting wall superheats as a function of the surface history and configuration are presented, but the reproducibility of the experiments is not found to be high.