THE INFLUENCE OF MUTUAL BUBBLE INTERACTION ON THE BUBBLE DEPARTURE DIAMETER

The tangential shear due to the volume and time-averaged pulsation vel ocity caused by thermally controlled bubble growth and successive cycl ic departure is found to be responsible for the natural switch from th e regime of isolated bubble growth and departure into the regime of mu tual interaction bubble growth and departure as the temperature differ ence between the bubble interface and surrounding liquid increases. Th e proposed theoretical model, based only on first principles, agrees w ell with the experimental data for boiling water to which it was compa red. The new model, which successfully predicts the isolated and mutua l interaction bubble departure size, and the quantitative description of the natural transition between the two regimes are the essential ne w features of this work.