Experimental investigation of transition process from nucleate boiling to microbubble emission boiling under transient heating modes

This study investigated the transition from nucleate boiling to microbubble emission boiling (MEB) on a small heating surface under transient heating modes. During the short unstable boiling process after critical heat flux with a rapid increase in wall temperature, capillary waves were observed over the vapor film at subcooling of 30–40 K. The visualization results in this process demonstrated that the partial collapse of vapor film induced strong jet toward the heating surface and therefore avoided complete dryout thereon. This mechanism certainly plays an important role in the transition to stable MEB. Further comparison between the wall temperature and boiling states indicates that the wall temperature at onset point of stable MEB is determined by the predominance of MEB mode over film boiling in the transition process. Effects of liquid subcooling and surface oxidation on the transition process were also investigated at the same time.