CFD Simulations and Experimental Verification on Nucleate Pool Boiling of Liquid Nitrogen

Abstract To explore the mechanism of nucleate pool boiling of cryogenic fluids, an experimental apparatus was built to conduct a visualization study and verify the CFD boiling model. Apart from the general measurements of the super-heat and heat flux, the influences of super-heat on bubble departure diameters were specially analyzed. Based on the observations, the whole nucleate boiling process from bubble formation to departure from the heated wall can be divided into three stages: low heat flux stage; transitional stage; fully developed nucleate boiling (FDNB) stage. CFD simulations with several existing correlations and the attained values from the experiments for the bubble diameter were finally conducted, and the results fitted well with the present experimental data.