Nucleate Pool Boiling: The Dominant Bubble Heat Transfer Mechanisms

Enhanced convection, transient conduction, microlayer evaporation, and contact line heat transfer have all been proposed as mechanisms by which bubbles transfer energy during boiling. Models based on these mechanisms contain fitting parameters that are used to fit them to the data, resulting a proliferation of “validated” models. A review of the recent experimental, analytical, and numerical work into single bubble heat transfer is presented to determine the contribution of each of the above mechanisms to the overall heat transfer. Transient conduction and microconvection are found to be the dominant heat transfer mechanisms.