Flow of vapour in a liquid enclosure

A solution is developed for the flow of a vapour in a liquid enclosure in which different portions of the liquid wall have different temperatures. It is shown that the vapour pressure is very nearly uniform in the enclosure, and an expression for the net vapour flux is deduced. This pressure and the net vapour flux are readily expressed in terms of the temperatures on the liquid boundary. Explicit results are given for simple liquid boundaries: two plane parallel walls at different temperatures and concentric spheres and cylinders at different temperatures. Some comments are also made regarding the effects of unsteady liquid temperatures and of motions of the boundaries. The hemispherical vapour cavity is also discussed because of its applicability to the nucleate boiling problem.