VAPORIZATION AND EXPLOSION OF A SUPERHEATED DROPLET UNDER ISOBARIC CONDITIONS

The heating of a water aerosol droplet until it disintegrates (by varp orization or explosion) is investigated in the approximation of a unif orm optical field in the interior of the droplet for three isobaric re gimes: thermal conduction, combined conduction and convection, and con vection. The main characteristics of the heating process are determine d and described for droplets with initial radii of 1-5 mum, including: the distributions of the temperature and velocity of the liquid insid e the droplet, the variation of the droplet radius, the heating time t o disintegration, and the explosion threshold. The time of homogeneous nucleation of vapor bubbles in the metastable liquid is adopted as th e criterion of explosion. The boundaries between the investigated heat ing regimes are more accurately determined. It is shown that the explo sion threshold is influenced by the time profile of the irradiating pu lse.