Lattice Boltzmann modeling and simulation of forced-convection boiling on a cylinder

Abstract

When boiling occurs in a liquid flow field, the phenomenon is known as forced-convection boiling. We numerically investigate such a boiling system on a cylinder in a flow at saturated conditions. To deal with the complicated liquid-vapor phase-change phenomenon, we develop a numerical scheme based on the pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The collision stage is performed in the space of central moments (CMs) to enhance numerical stability for high Reynolds numbers. The adopted forcing scheme, consistent with the CM-based LBM, leads to a concise yet robust algorithm. Furthermore, additional terms required to ensure thermodynamic consistency are derived in a CM framework. The effectiveness of the present scheme is successfully tested against a series of boiling processes, including nucleation, growth, and departure of a vapor bubble for Reynolds numbers varying between 30 and 30 000. Our CM-based LBM can reproduce all the boiling regimes, i.e., nucleate boiling, transition boiling, and film boiling, without any artificial input such as initial vapor phase. We find that the typical boiling curve, also known as the Nukiyama curve, appears even though the focused system is not the pool boiling but the forced-convection system. Also, our simulations support experimental observations of intermittent direct solid-liquid contact even in the film-boiling regime. Finally, we provide quantitative comparison with the semi-empirical correlations for the forced-convection film boiling on a cylinder on the Nu-Ja diagram.

Mesoscopic simulation of three-dimensional pool boiling based on a phase-change cascaded lattice Boltzmann method

“…48,49 Therefore, it is time to extend CLBM to simulate the more challenging thermal multiphase flow, e.g., the boiling process. More recently, CLBM has been employed to simulate twodimensional (2D) forced-convection boiling on a cylinder by Saito et al, 50 while the present work further extends CLBM to a much larger thermal multiphase system, i.e., the three-dimensional (3D) pool boiling.…”

“…The above settings approximately correspond to the saturated water-vapor system at temperature 556 K and pressure 7 MPa. 50 Following Refs. 30, 33, and 34, the specific heat at constant volume is set to be constant, cv = 6.0, in the whole computational domain.…”

Droplet evaporation in finite-size systems: Theoretical analysis and mesoscopic modeling

“…The saturated coexistence densities can be correctly reproduced by the mechanical stability adjustment method developed by Li et al [56,57]. The hybrid formulation was subsequently extended to CLBM and systematically verified [53,58]. Moreover, it was shown that the resulting hybrid multiphase CLBM had superior stability and was able to simulate large-scale pool boiling [53] and forced-convection boiling [58] systems covering the complete boiling curve and typical boiling regimes.…”

“…Moreover, it was shown that the resulting hybrid multiphase CLBM had superior stability and was able to simulate large-scale pool boiling [53] and forced-convection boiling [58] systems covering the complete boiling curve and typical boiling regimes. In this study, the treatments proposed by Saito et al [58] and Fei et al [53] are combined and adopted for both 2D and 3D simulations. Using the Chapman-Enskog analysis, the following macroscopic equations can be recovered:…”

Improved color-gradient method for lattice Boltzmann modeling of two-phase flows

“…LBM received a growing interest motivated by its scalability and its low dissipation properties, making it particularly well-suited for acoustic long distance dispersion problems 20 . It has been applied to a wide range of applications such as, reservoir permeability [21][22][23] , combustion flows 24 , blood flow 25 , boiling flow 26 , thermocapillarity flows 27 , non-Newtonian flows 28 , magneto-hydrodynamic flows 29 , cryogenic flows 30 , etc.…”