Boiling crisis and non-equilibrium drying transition

Département de Recherche Fondamentale sur la Matière Condensée, CEA Grenoble 17, rue des Martyrs, 38054, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

Received: 22 December 1998
Accepted: 31 May 1999

Abstract

Boiling crisis is the rapid formation of the quasi-continuous vapor film between the heater and the liquid when the heat supply exceeds a critical value. We propose a mechanism for the boiling crisis that is based on the spreading of the dry spot under a vapor bubble. The spreading is initiated by the vapor recoil force, a force coming from the liquid evaporation into the bubble. Since the evaporation intensity increases sharply near the triple contact line, the influence of the vapor recoil can be described as a change of the apparent contact angle. Therefore, for the most usual case of complete wetting of the heating surface by the liquid, the boiling crisis can be understood as a drying transition from complete to partial wetting.