Evaporation and Nucleate Boiling of an Individual Droplet on Surfaces

A visual study was conducted to investigate the evaporation and nucleate boiling of a water droplet on heated copper, aluminum, or stainless surfaces with temperature ranging from 50°C to 112°C. Using a high-speed video imaging system, the dynamical process of the evaporation of a droplet was recoded to measure the transient variation of its diameter, height, and contact angle. When the contact temperature was lower than the saturation temperature, the evaporation was in film evaporation regime, and the evaporation could be divided into two stages. When the surface temperature was higher than the saturation temperature, the nucleate boiling was observed. The dynamical behavior of nucleation, bubble dynamics droplet were detail observed and discussed. The linear relationships of the average heat flux vs. temperature of the heated surfaces were found to hold for both the film evaporation regime and nucleate boiling regime. The different slopes indicated their heat transfer mechanism was distinct, the heat flux decreased in the nucleate boiling regime more rapidly than in the film evaporation due to the strong interaction between the bubbles.