A SIMPLE UNIVERSAL EQUATION FOR BUBBLE-GROWTH IN PURE LIQUIDS AND BINARY-SOLUTIONS WITH A NONVOLATILE SOLUTE

A simple equation suitable for predicting the growth rate of a vapor b ubble in uniformly-superheated pure liquids and in binary solutions wi th a non-volatile solute was developed. The equation also improves on the popular pure-liquid bubble growth expression of Mikic et al. (Inte rnational Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 1992, 35, 1711-1722) in t hat it is valid throughout the bubble growth history, i.e. in the surf ace-tension-, inertia-, and heat-transfer-controlled regimes, it accou nts for bubble growth acceleration effects, and uses correctly-related and variable fluid properties. It was found to agree very well with e xperimental data for pure water and for aqueous NaCl solutions. As the bubble growth in superheated solutions with a non-volatile solute was found to be quite insensitive to diffusion and nonequilibrium effects in a broad range of common solution properties, this equation is like ly to be universally valid for many liquids and solutions. Copyright ( C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.