9th INDO-GERMAN WINTER ACADEMY

BOILING HEAT TANSFER AND

CRITICAL HEAT FLUX
Presented by Astha Airan
Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay
Guide Prof. Ravi Kumar, IIT Roorkee

OUTLINE
BOILING
POOL BOILING MODES

Nucleate Boiling

Critical Heat Flux

Film Boiling

Bubble Growth & Heat Transfer Models

FORCED CONVECTION BOILING

Burnout & Factors Influencing burnout

Burnout Evaluation Methods

SUMMARY

MOTIVATION
Nucleate Boiling is an efficient mode of heat transfer. It has

useful application in many areas such as refrigeration, power

generation, chemical processing and nuclear reactors.
Avoiding the Critical Heat Flux is an engineering problem in

heat transfer applications, such as nuclear reactors, where

fuel plates must not be allowed to overheat.

BOILING
Evaporation occurs at solid liquid interface.

Characterize by formation of bubbles which grow and

subsequently detach from the surface.

POOL BOILING
Liquid is quiescent.
Its motion is induced by free convection and mixing induced
by bubble growth and detachment.
CONVECTIVE BOILING
Fluid motion is induced by external means.

POOL BOILING MODES

Natural convection (Twall < TIB)
Heat transferred by single phase natural

DNB

convection.
Nucleate Boiling (TIB < Twall < TDNB)
MFB
Bubble production commences on surface.
IB
Initially small number of nucleation sites
are active.
Fig : Boiling Curve
At higher flux number of nucleation sites increases
Bubbles coalesce and form irregular columns of vapor leaving
the surface .
At D departure from nucleate boiling occurs also known as
Critical Heat Flux.

POOL BOILING MODES

Transition Boiling(TDNB < Twall < TMFB)
Vapor film begins to form.
Thermal conductivity of vapor is much less than that of

liquid.
Flux decreases.
Film Boiling (TMFB < Twall)
Heated surface is covered by a continuous film of vapor.
Heat is transferred mainly by radiation.
Flux increases.

Fig : Pool Boiling Process

NUCLEATE BOILING
Rohsenow(1952) was the first to develop a model for

nucleate boiling.
From similarity analogy:
Diameter of a bubble on its departure from heated surface
can be determined from force balance
Characteristic velocity for agitation of liquid can be found by

the distance the liquid travelled to fill in behind the departing

bubble by the time between bubble departure
Energy it takes to form a
bubble

Rate at which heat is added

over the solid-vapor contact
area

NUCLEATE BOILING (contd.)

From these equations we get
l g g

1
2

C p ,l Te

C Pr n
l
s, f

But this correlation when applied can result in 100% error.

Effect of surface roughness - Increasing surface roughness

provide larger sites for nucleation thus increasing heat flux.

Effect of pressure - As increases with increase in pressure the
nucleate boiling heat flux will increase as the liquid is
pressurized.

CRITICAL HEAT FLUX

During nucleate boiling large quantities of vapor are

generated at the heated surface which must be continuously

replenished with liquid.
At the critical condition breakdown of this counterflow
situation occurs owing to the onset of a Helmholtz instability
at the liquid- vapor interface.
Through hydrodynamic stability analysis Zuber calculated
critical heat flux
crit

l
0.18 l g g

g
l
1
2
g

1
4

FILM BOILING
Heat is conducted along a thin vapor film to cause

evaporation at the liquid vapor interface.

Distortion of this interface is increased by gravitational body
forces and opposed by surface tension.
Taylor (1950) showed the interface to be unstable for the
disturbances with wavelength greater than a critical value c.

c 2

l
g

1
2

Berenson's model for horizontal film boiling

k 3 g

g
l
g

h 0.42
1

g Tsat g
l
g

1
4

BUBBLE NUCLEATION
HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION -For a bubble of radius r

to grow the internal pressure must overcome the collapsing

effect of surface tension
p

2
r

This excess pressure can be converted to the amount of

superheat by Clausius Clapeyron equation

P

T Tsat v g vl

pG pL

TG TSAT

TG TSAT

Tsat vg

2Tsat vg

 In Homogeneous Nucleation the rate of nucleation is

n

G
Nk BT

exp
hP
k BT

The change in Gibbs free energy increases with r for

subcooled liquid. In superheated liquid it first increases with

r till r* then decreases with r
Smaller nucleus than equilibrium size will collapse and a

larger nucleus will grow.

 HETEROGENEOUS NUCLEATION
Occurs at surface cavities.
For subcooled liquid if liquid wets the cavity walls then vapor

pressure will be insufficient to balance surface tension. Nucleation

site become inactive.
If walls of the cavity are poorly wetted curvature of interface
reverses and surface tension resists further penetration .
During heating vapor pressure rises driving the interface towards the
mouth of the cavity. A well-wetted cavity may also be active as a
nucleation site if heating commences before it is completely filled
with liquid.

BUBBLE GROWTH
For a vapor bubble to grow :

Thermal Diffusion Control Growth - The temperature of the bubble

interface must be lower than that of the surrounding liquid so that
heat is supplied to cause evaporation.
2) Inertia Controlled Growth - The pressure inside the bubble must
exceed that some distance away in the liquid, both to do work to
increase the kinetic energy of the surrounding liquid and to
overcome the inter- facial pressure difference caused by surface
tension.
1)

Fig : (a) inertia controlled (b) diffusion controlled

HEAT TRANSFER MODELS

a)

Latent-heat transport(Rallis and Jawurek 1964) - Heat is

supplied near the wall to bubbles which then move away into
the bulk liquid. In subcooled boiling there could be
simultaneous evaporation at the base of a bubble and
condensation at its tip.

b)

Micro-convection (Bankoff 1961) - Bubble growth and/or

collapse causes random liquid motion very close to the wall.

Vapour- liquid exchange(Engelberg-Forster and Grief 1959)A 'Reynolds analogy I model in which bubble growth causes an
exchange of liquid between the wall and bulk regions.
d) Surface quenching(Han and Griffith 1965)- A variation on (c),
assuming transient conduction to the cold liquid contacting
the wall after bubble departure.
c)

e)

Wake flow(Tien 1962)-Liquid motion behind a departing,

bubble causes convection from the wall.

f)

Enhanced natural convection (Zuber 1963)-Bubble columns

produce a cellular flow pattern similar to natural convection
above a large horizontal surface.

g)

Thermocapillary flow(McGrew, Bamford, and Rehm 1966)Small variations in surface tension due to temperature
differences between the base and tip of a bubble cause a jet of
hot liquid to flow away from the wall.

FORCED CONVECTION BOILING

Forced Convection Boiling Modes
Single phase convection
Subcooled Flow Boiling- Nucleation begins as Twall

becomes Tsat
Saturated Film Boiling
The thickness of bubble region increases and core of
the liquid reaches saturation and bubbly flow begins.
As the volume fraction of vapor increases
individual bubble coalesces to form slugs of vapor.
The liquid then forms a film which move along the
inner surface in annular flow.
Mist flow till all liquid is converted into vapor.
Fig: Flow regimes for forced convection
boiling inside a tube
The vapor is then heated by forced convection.

BURNOUT IN FORCED CONVECTIVE

BOILING
Burnout boiling crises that results in physical damage.

Departure from nucleate boiling (DNB): Under subcooled or

saturated nucleate boiling conditions the crisis is thought to

take the form of the growth of a steam layer on the heated
surface, termed film boiling.
Dryout: In the annular-flow regime the
failure of heat transfer is associated with
the loss of the film of water on the wall
as a result of entrainment and evaporation
leading to a dry-wall regime.
Fig :Two postulated mechanisms of 'burnout': (a)
departure from nucleate boiling (DNB) (b) dryout

The transition from nucleate

to film boiling is associated
with a large increase in wall
temperature often sufficient to
cause physical damage, while
the transition from annular
flow to the dry-wall regime in
general does not.

Fig :Types of burnout as a function of

quality

FACTORS INFLUENCING BURNOUT

Fluid Properties

Coolant supply (G) and enthalpy of inlet subcooling (ii)

Distribution of phases

Geometry, Length (L) and Diameter (D)

II. Gravity direction
III. Centrifugal forces due to bends and coils
IV. Complex cross-sections
Heat-flux distribution
Surface condition
Hydraulic stability
I.

BURNOUT EVALUATION MODEL

Evaluation of burnout

Prediction of the conditions under which burnout will

occur
2. Prediction of the magnitude of the burnout power level
3. Prediction of the effect of operating variables on this power
level.
The method of evaluation depends upon the complexity of
the plant configuration and on the amount of experimental
data already available.
1.

Basic studies of
burnout mechanism
scaling-geometry
effects
Burnout studies using
straight tubes, bends
and coils
Analysis of world
data on burnout

Full-scale testing
using electrically
heated test sections.
Testing with Freon
modeling at reduced
pressure and power
Air-Water
Simulation (adiabatic)
Theoretical models
taking into account
geometry and surface
effects
Correlation of
experimental data
Fig: Burnout Evaluation Models

Prediction of
plant
performance

BURNOUT IN STRAIGHT TUBES

Experiments were conducted by

changing one of the control parameters

G or ii. In this way a series of results
are obtained of burnout power P vs ii
for several values of mass velocity G.
P Po

GD 2 ii

P DL G

D 2
4

ii x

These results can be can be expressed in terms of heat flux ,

quality x, or boiling length Lb in the following ways

 correlation in terms of burnout flux and inlet subcooling

GDii

1
o
4 Lo
correlation in terms of burnout flux and burnout quality x

1
x

o 1 1 xo

correlation in terms of burnout quality x and boiling length Lb

Lb
Lo

xo 1 Lb
Lo
where, the fractional boiling length Lb/Lo is given by

Lb
x

Lo x ii

MODELING OF BURNOUT USING FREON

Empirical relationships exist between high-pressure water and

Freons, which have been used as modeling to investigate the

behavior of high pressure water in straight tubes.

Experiment was conducted with freon and water in 2 tubes.

Make

(ii ) w w

(ii ) f f

Make

Then since

Lb
x

, ( Lb) w ( Lb) f
Lo x ii

Make the ratio of density of liquid and gas phase for water and

freon same.

 Assuming

By reducing the mass velocity scale for the water by a constant

factor the plot for x vs G for water and freon can be

superimposed .

BURNOUT IN COMPLEX GEOMETRY

Geometry which
has been
investigated for
boiling water
reactor

Variation of
geometry
involved in
boiler

Fig : Examples of different geometries

BURNOUT EVALUATION OF REACTOR FUEL

Information on burnout in reactor fuel is required for optimization of

designs, for setting limiting operating conditions and for safety

studies.
Experimental
measurement of
burnout power
characteristic

Measurement of
channel power, flow,
subcooling and
moderator height

Allowance for in-reactor

factors differing from
experiment
Calculation of burnout margin
= (burnout power)/ (operating power)
Allowance for uncertainties due to experimental
accuracy in-reactor instruments, mechanical tolerances,
variations in reactor power, flow, etc.
Satisfactorily low
probability of burnout

SUMMARY
Analytical models are available for the reasonably well-

defined flow patterns of film boiling.

The critical heat flux for transition from nucleate to film
boiling can be predicted with sufficient accuracy for design
purposes, although further investigation of the processes very
close to the surface is desirable to clarify the mechanism of
transition.
No satisfactory model has yet been developed for the
complicated heat-transfer processes in nucleate boiling. The
nucleating characteristics of the surface represent a major
difficulty in either theoretical or empirical correlations.

SUMMARY
The evaluation of burnout in industrial plant involves

combination of analysis of existing data, theoretical models, and

detailed experimental investigation using electrical heating.
Progress is being made towards better understanding of the
mechanisms of burnout, and data are being accumulated from
experiments with straight tubes, bends, and coils.
The synthesis of experimental data and theoretical models may
in methods of predicting burnout, even in complex geometries,
but full-scale confirmatory testing of specific designs is must
when high accuracy of prediction is required.

THANK YOU