Characteristics of Pool Boiling Bubble Dynamics in Bead Packed Porous Structures

Spherical glass and copper beads have been used to create bead packed porous structures for an investigation of two-phase heat transfer bubble dynamics under geometric constraints. The results demonstrated a variety of bubble dynamics characteristics under a range of heating conditions. The bubble generation, growth, and detachment during the nucleate pool boiling heat transfer have been filmed, the heating surface temperatures and heat flux were recorded, and theoretical models have been employed to study bubble dynamic characteristics. Computer simulation results were combined with experimental observations to clarify the details of the vapor bubble growth process and the liquid water replenishing the inside of the porous structures. This investigation has clearly shown, with both experimental and computer simulation evidence, that the millimeter scale bead packed porous structures could greatly influence pool boiling heat transfer by forcing a single bubble to depart at a smaller size, as compared with that in a plain surface situation at low heat flux situations, and could trigger the earlier occurrence of critical heat flux by trapping the vapor into interstitial space and forming a vapor column net at high heat flux situations. The results also proved data for further development of theoretical models of pool boiling heat transfer in bead packed porous structures.