Pf. Peterson et Ij. Rao, STABILITY OF CONDENSATION ON HORIZONTAL SURFACES WITH NONCONDENSABLESPRESENT, Journal of heat transfer, 117(4), 1995, pp. 1003-1010
This work studies condensation on horizontal surfaces in the presence
of noncondensable gases using linear stability analysis to determine w
hen one-dimensional flow will bifurcate to a higher-order flow due to
an adverse density gradient. The problem is solved for the simple sing
le-diffusive case and for the double-diffusive case where the density
also depends on either a temperature gradient or a second noncondensab
le gas species. For the single-diffusive case critical Rayleigh number
s and gas layer thicknesses are obtained for a wide range of Schmidt n
umbers. Using these results, the quantity of noncondensable required t
o destabilize a horizontal system can be calculated and usually will b
e found to be small.