Heat transfer mechanisms in bubbly Rayleigh-Benard convection

This Proceeding contribution summarizes our results to be published in ref. [1]: The effectiveness of boiling as a heat transfer mechanism has been known for centuries and the process has formed the object of a very large number of studies [2]. The emerging vapor bubbles introduce a new parameter to the classical Rayleigh-Bénard convection [3], namely the Jacob number Ja=ρcp(Th−Tsat)/ρVL (1) in which L is the latent heat, ρV and ρ the vapor and liquid density, respectively, c p the liquid specific heat and T sat the saturation temperature of the liquid. Physically, Ja represents the ratio of the sensible heat to the latent heat. A very small Jacob number may be thought of as a very large value of the latent heat, which will tend to limit the volume change of the bubbles due to evaporation or condensation. For Ja = 0 the latent heat is effectively infinite and bubbles cannot grow or shrink.