Attainable Superheat of Argon−Helium, Argon−Neon Solutions

The method of lifetime measurement has been used to investigate the kinetics of spontaneous boiling-up of superheated argon−helium and argon−neon solutions. Experiments were made at a pressure of p = 1.5 MPa and concentrations up to 0.33 mol% in the range of nucleation rates from 104 to 108 s−1 m−3. The homogeneous nucleation regime has been distinguished. With good agreement between experimental data and homogeneous nucleation theory in temperature and concentration dependences of the nucleation rate, a systematic underestimation by 0.25−0.34 K has been revealed in superheat temperatures over the saturated line attained by experiment as compared with theoretical values calculated in a macroscopic approximation. The revealed disagreement between theory and experiment is connected with the dependence of the properties of new-phase nuclei on their size.