International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

An experimental study of bubble sliding characteristics in narrow channel

Shaodan Li a,1, Sichao Tan a,⇑, Chao Xu b, Puzhen Gao b, Licheng Sun b
a
Key Discipline Laboratory of Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Heilongjiang 150001, PR China
b
College of Nuclear Science and Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Heilongjiang, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An experimental investigation was conducted to study bubble sliding in subcooled flow boiling of water
Received 10 May 2012 in a vertical narrow rectangular channel. Bubble behaviors were recorded using a high speed digital cam-
Received in revised form 30 September 2012 era and an automatic digital image processing algorithm dealing with bubble sliding parameters (includ-
Accepted 2 October 2012
ing bubble numbers, bubble velocities and bubble equivalent diameters) was proposed. The bubble image
Available online 31 October 2012
sequences were analyzed to obtain the distribution of bubble diameters and bubble velocities as well as
their mean spatial-temporal value. Most of the bubbles in the experiments slide along the heated surface,
Keywords:
but not lift off the surface, as is usual in a conventional channel. Two types of bubbles with different
Narrow rectangular channel
Bubble sliding
behaviors were observed in the experiments. The first type has a shorter lifetime and their diameters
Subcooled boiling or volumes change a lot through rapid vaporizing and condensing. On the contrary, bubbles which were
High-speed visualization classified as the second type have a longer lifetime and their diameters or volumes change slowly. Bubble
Digital image processing sliding velocity and bubble equivalent diameter distribution profiles were obtained based on the results
of the automated analysis. The distribution of bubble sliding velocities and bubble equivalent diameters
indicates that both of them cover a wide range. At last, mean bubble velocities, mean relative velocities
between bubbles and local liquids and bubble densities under different working conditions were
obtained to manifest the effects of mass flow rate, inlet subcooling and heat flux.
Crown Copyright Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction differences in some cases. For example, a bubble will condense in

The characteristics of heat transfer and fluid flow under boiling
conditions in a narrow channel with large aspects ratio are differ-
ent from those in other channel geometries and have been paid
considerable attention recently. The narrow channels have been
widely used in advanced nuclear reactors and compact heat
exchangers because of the significant heat transfer enhancement
properties.
Bubble dynamics is developed for the purpose of understanding
the boiling process and the prediction of the void fraction distribu-
tion which is a key parameter in reactors because of the strong
coupling with the neutron moderation in the reactor core. In gen-
eral, a bubble generated in an upward flow boiling will experience
the following three stages. Firstly, bubble generates from the nucle-
ation site and a fast growth follows. After obtaining an enough
diameter, the bubble departs from the nucleation site and slide
along the heated surface. Finally, the bubble will detach from the
surface and jet into the liquid core, known as normal bubble
lift-off. This process is shown schematically in Fig. 1(a). The three
stages do not always appear as described above, but show
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 451 82569655; fax: +86 451 82569655.
E-mail addresses: lishaodan@live.cn (S. Li), tansichao@yahoo.com.cn (S. Tan).
1
Tel.: +86 451 82569655; fax: +86 451 82569655.
the liquid core after lifting off from surface provided the bulk fluid
is subcooled, as shown in Fig. 1(b). In addition, some lift-off bubbles
remain close to the wall, and eventually reattach the wall (shown in
Fig. 1(c)). Some were observed continue sliding and never lift off
from the heated surface, as indicated in Fig. 1(d) and (e). The bubble
shown in Fig. 1(d) slides a long distance and maintains a constant
size approximately. While the bubble in Fig. 1(e), after reaching
its maximum diameter, begins to shrink while still attaching the
heated surface. All of above phenomena can be found in the exper-
iments of Bibeau and Salcudean [1], Thorncroft et.al. [2], Cooper
et al. [3], Prodanovic et al. [4] and Okawa et al. [5].
Most experimental researches involving bubble behavior were
performed in conventional channels and the restriction effects of
narrow channel on subcooled boiling were not properly consid-
ered. Kandlikar [6] reviewed the effects of channel size on two-
phase flow patterns, pressure drop and heat transfer performance
during flow boiling in mini- and micro-channels. Some similar
works also have been carried out by Vlasie et al. [7] and Bergles
et al. [8]. The results from the above reviews indicate that as the
channel size is smaller than certain critical value, the two-phase
flow regimes and the associated heat transfer differ significantly
from those in channels of conventional size. Bubble growth in a
narrow channel is also restrained by the channel wall in the trans-
versal direction. Recently, Lie and Lin [9] conducted an experiment

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.10.002
90 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99

Nomenclature

A area DTsub,in inlet subcooling

a scaling factor Dt time interval
b scaling factor k friction factor
D bubble diameter ml kinematic viscosity of the liquid
f nucleation site density ql liquid density
G mass flux sw wall shear stress
h channel height x aspect ratio of rectangular channel
Kp calibration of the image
N bubble number Subscripts
Patm atmospheric pressure i image sequence indicator
q00 heat flux j image sequence indicator
Re Reynolds number l liquid
s distance from wall sat saturation
T temperature sub subcooling
t time w wall
uB bubble velocity x x-direction
u+ dimensionless velocity y y-direction
vl area-averaged liquid velocity z z-direction
x bubble location in horizontal direction
x+ dimensionless distance Superscripts
y bubble location in vertical direction ⁄
dimensionless quantities
+
dimensionless quantities
Greek symbols
a void fraction
C bubble density

to investigate how the channel size effects the bubble characteris-
tics of R-134a in a narrow annular duct. The visualization results
indicated that the bubble departure frequency increases at reduc-
ing duct size.
Vapor bubble growth and departure has been experimentally
researched in vertical upflow and downflow forced convection
boiling by Thorncroft et al. [2]. They reported that bubbles de-
parted from the nucleation sites and slide along the heated surface,
and typically do not lift off in an upflow configuration. The heat
transfer coefficient is significantly higher for upflow than down-
flow because of the heat transfer enhancement effects of the slid-
ing bubbles. Subsequently, the effect of vapor bubble sliding on
forced convection boiling heat transfer was further examined by
Thorncroft and Klausner [10]. They suggested that the bulk turbu-
lent enhancement due to sliding bubbles is a significant heat trans-
fer mechanism in forced convection boiling. Moreover, Okawa et al.
[11] indicated that bubble sliding along the heated surface after
departure from a nucleation not only plays an important role in
heat transfer, but also changes the cross-sectional area-averaged
value of the void fraction and its distribution over the flow channel.
Bubble behavior and temperature field of a horizontal narrow
channel for different fluids under subcooled boiling were obtained
by Ozer et al. [12]. They indicated that the enhancement heat
transfer behind the ‘‘boiling front’’ is caused primarily by sliding
bubbles rather than the activation of the nucleation sites. Other
researchers, including Sateesh et al. [13], Houston and Cornwell
[14], Tsung-Chang and Bankoff [15] and Donnelly et al. [16], also
found sliding bubble heat transfer is of great importance.
Since no model of bubble sliding velocity exists, Situ et al. [17]
assumed that the bubble sliding velocity is half of the local fluid
velocity when modeling the bubble lift off diameters. However,
Chu et al. [18] found Situ et al.’s model significantly overpredicted

Fig. 1. Different bubble behaviors in vertical upward flow boiling.

 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99
the bubble lift off diameters when compared with other research-
er’s data. They think that this discrepancy may come from the inac-
curate prediction of the velocity of sliding bubbles. In a general
research of bubble dynamics relating to boiling phenomenon, bub-
ble departure and lift-off has been researched by many investiga-
tors based on the analysis of forces on a bubble, such as Cho
et al. [19] and Thorncroft et al. [20]. An experimental study of sin-
gle bubble behavior in vertical narrow channel at different system
pressure was conducted by Yuan et al. [21]. Their results show that
the system pressure has an important effect on bubble growth,
thus affecting the bubble sliding characteristics significantly. Even
though lots of researches have been done for single bubble with a
great many experimental data base, some pivotal information of
the boiling process would be overlooked due to the stochastic fea-
tures of the bubbles. Recently, in order to further understand the
complex process of the boiling phenomenon, some parameters
characterizing the bubble behaviors such as bubble size, bubble
density distribution, phase boundary velocity, bubble lifetime
and distribution of void fraction under different conditions were
analyzed by Maurus and Sattelmayer [22] and Maurus et al. [23].
A two-dimensional cross-correlation algorithm was adopted to cal-
culate the velocity profile of the bubble layer. They reported that
the bubble behavior was presented in form of distribution func-
tions for the first time. As similar with Marous et al.’s work, Puli
and Kumar [24] obtained bubble size distribution with respect to
different heat flux, mass flow rate and system pressure. Large
quantity of image data were automatically processed and analyzed
by digital image processing techniques in their work.
The above reviewed literatures clearly indicate that extensive
research has been carried out for bubble behaviors in which bubble
sliding is very important in flow boiling. However, the bubble slid-
ing characteristics remains less explored especially for narrow
channel. The sliding bubbles in upward subcooled flow boiling in
a vertical narrow rectangular channel were observed and recorded
by a high speed camera in this work. The obtained bubble image
sequences were automatically processed though digital image pro-
cessing so that the sliding bubble characteristics can be analyzed.
Furthermore, parametric effects of mass flux, surface heat flux
and inlet temperature on bubble sliding features were studied.
2. Experimental methods
2.1. Experimental apparatus
The experiment is processed in a closed loop and using deionized
water as working fluid. The schematic of the flow loop adopted in
this work is illustrated in Fig. 2. The distilled water is circulated
via a main pump. A tube connected the outlet of test section vents
Fig. 2. Schematic of experimental apparatus.
91
to atmosphere for keeping the system pressure equal to atmosphere
pressure. The fluid is preheated to the projected temperature firstly
via four coil heaters in the preheater, and then directed to the test
section for subcooled boiling experiments. A wide range of heat
fluxes is supplied to the test section though two copper electrodes
with a DC power with a capacity of 2000 A/50 V. The heat power
is obtained through the product of the voltage and current across
the test section. The voltage is measured by a voltmeter (range
0–7.5 V) and the current is measured using a hook-on galvanometer
(range 0–2000 A). After exiting the test section, the fluid enters a
heat exchanger and is cooled by cold circulation water.
The fluid temperature is measured at the inlet and outlet of the
test section with two N type shielded thermocouples. The heated
surface temperature is also detected by ten N type shielded ther-
mocouples which are embedded to the outer surface of the heater
plate. All of the thermocouples were calibrated prior to their instal-
lation and have an accuracy of ±0.5 °C. The degree of subcooling,
defined as DT sub ¼ T sat ðP atm Þ  T l ; is based on the saturation tem-
perature calculated at the atmosphere pressure. The pressure drop
across the test section is measured using two differential pressure
transducers, ranges of which are 0–30 and 0–100 kPa, respectively.
Both of the differential pressure transducers have an accuracy of
0.1%. A mass flow meter is employed to measure the mass flow rate
with a maximum error is 0.0022 kg/s. Voltage and current signals
from thermocouples, flowmeter and differential pressure transduc-
ers are transmitted to the data acquisition system.
The cross-section of the test section as well as the visualization
system are shown in Fig. 3. The test section consists of a rectangu-
lar stainless heater plate and a quartz glass with an etched groove
of 2mm in height and 40mm in width on the surface, thereby con-
stituting the vertical narrow rectangular channel of 550 mm in
length and with a cross-sectional area of 2  40 mm2. For the pur-
pose of eliminating the heat losses to the environment, the test
section was surrounded by thermal insulation materials. A FAST-
CAM SA5 high speed camera is used to record the bubble nucle-
ation, sliding and condensing processes. The maximum frame
rate of the camera is 1 Mega-frames per second (Mfps) and the
frame rate is set to 5000 fps in this work. A Sigma 105 mm 1:2.8
lens is mounted in front of the camera in order to get enough mag-
nification. The camera and two power-adjustable fiber lights (0–
150 W) are placed on a 2-D traverse rail parallel on the test section
which the camera can be moved horizontally and vertically. The
vertical distance between the location of the observation window
and the lower copper electrode is adjusted to 300 mm in this
experiment. The obtained image has a resolution of 576  360 pix-
els and the corresponding viewing area is about 30  19 mm2 in
reality. The uncertainty for locating the position of the bubble is
within ±1 pixels, and thus the maximum error of bubble location
is limited to ±0.06 mm. For measuring of the bubble diameter, this
uncertainty and error is limited to ±2 pixels and 0.12 mm. Errors
associated with calculated parameters are estimated using the er-
ror propagation method. The errors are listed in Table 1.
2.2. Experimental conditions and procedures
Special efforts have been made to eliminate non-condensable
gas in the water before the experiment is carried out. The dissolved
air is first removed by boiling the water in the storage tank for
more than four hours. Then the water from the storage tank is in-
jected into the experimental loop. A second degas process is con-
ducted through boiling the water in the preheater and the test
channel, and the non-condensable is removed from the tube which
connected the outlet of test section vents to atmosphere. The de-
gree of the degassing process is checked out by observing the con-
densation of the bubble in a subcooled boiling condition. The
bubble will not completely disappear during the condensation
92 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99
Fig. 3. Schematic of the test channel and visualization system.
Table 1
Estimated errors for experimental parameters.
Measured parameters Error(+/)
Temperature 0.5 °C
Mass flow rate 0.0022 kg/s
Differential pressure 0.1%
Time 106 s
Bubble diameter 0.06 mm
Bubble location 0.12 mm
Bubble velocity 0.292 m/s
Calibration of the image 0.87 lm/pixel
Voltage 0.2%
Current 0.2%
Heat flux 0.5%
process until a satisfactory degassing level is achieved. Subse-
quently, the subcooled boiling experiment is conducted under dif-
ferent conditions. Mass fluxes and inlet fluid temperatures have a
range of 304.1–760.2 kg/m2s and 54.2–86.9 °C, respectively. Heat
flux is varied systematically from the incipience of the bubble to
the occurrence of the flow instability, for each test, while the inlet
subcooling and the flow rate are held constant. The uniformity of
the heat flux along the plate has been verified by measuring the
voltage difference on different locations from the backside of the
heated plate. The results show that the maximum relative devia-
tion of the voltage difference from the average value is below 6%.
Because the current through the heater plate is identical, the heat
flux along the plate is uniform approximately. Experimental raw
data are collected only if the differences between the calculated
and measured exit fluid bulk temperatures are less than ±5%.
3. Measurements of bubble velocity and bubble diameter
The pre-processing of the bubble image (including image filter-
ing, convolution and edge detection, etc.) and the measurements of
the bubble Feret’s diameter and bubble location were batch-pro-
cessed in Image-Pro which is a powerful image analysis program.
After that, these obtained data were further processed by using
MATLAB to get the bubble sliding velocity and bubble equivalent
diameter. This will be described in the following sections in detail.
3.1. Measurements of bubble velocity
Although the bubble experiences some small lateral move-
ments, the magnitude of the lateral velocity is negligible compared
with the vertical velocity. On the other hand, the lateral velocity of
the sliding bubble is readily influenced by the measurements error.
And thus only the vertical velocity, namely, the sliding velocity is
measured in this work. Here, we assumed that the velocity of the
centroid of a bubble represents its sliding velocity, which is given
by
yjþ1  yj
uB ¼ Kp ð1Þ
Dt
where yjþ1 and yj is the bubble location on two successive images in
the vertical direction(it should be noted here that the unit of this
location is pixel). Dt denotes the time interval of the two successive
images and equals to the reciprocal of the frame rate, thus
Dt = 2 ms. Kp is the calibration of the bubble image, namely the spa-
tial distance between the neighbor pixels. Kp is about 50 lm/pixel
in this paper.
The bubble is identified and searched in an elliptic domain,
which means the bubbles in two successive images should be the
same one if the following condition is satisfied.
2  2
ðxjþ1  xj Þ2 ðyjþ1  yj Þ m f Dt
þ 2
6 ð2Þ
a2 b Kp
where xj+1 and xj is the bubble location of two successive images in
the horizontal direction (the unit is pixels as the same as yj+1), mf is
the area-averaged liquid velocity in the flow channel. a and b are
scaling factors after considering the main direction of the bubble
velocity is vertical. The value of 0.2 and 1.5 are adopted for a and
b respectively in this work. Compared with the cross-correlation
algorithm adopted by Maurus and Sattelmayer [22], this method
can detect the velocity of the bubble centroid more quickly.
3.2. Measurements of bubble diameter
The unsteady forces and the confinement effect of the narrow
channel induce the bubble distortion, as shown in Fig. 4. The
deformation of the bubbles should be taken into account while
measuring the equivalent diameter. Only front view of the bubble
image could be obtained in this work considering the characteris-
tic of the narrow rectangular channel (shown in Fig. 3), and thus
Dz in Fig. 4(a) cannot be determined directly from the current 2D
bubble image. Dz is replaced by the average value of Dx and Dy in
this paper for the bubble in Fig. 4(a) Dx and Dy are approximately
determined by the maximum and minimum Feret’s diameter of
the bubble. In addition, the discrepancy caused by the attachment
was ignored due to a smaller contact angle (about p/4) with the
wall. The calculation of the bubble equivalent diameter is esti-
mated by
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
De ¼ 3
Dx Dy Dz ð3Þ
On the other hand, the bubble will be squeezed against the glass
plate as it grows large enough, making it change to a drum-like
shape. The outer circumferences of bubbles are assumed as a
 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99 93

Fig. 5. The contact area of sliding bubble.

attachment of the bubble and heater wall can be found in most

of the bubble images for all of the conditions in this work, thus
the situation that most bubbles did not lift off from the wall could
be ascertained.
The reason why bubbles do not detach from the surface but
slide along the surface may be explained by the following reasons.
The expansion of the bubble is asymmetrical due to the presence of
the wall, which induces an unsteady drag force in the direction
normal to the wall. This unsteady drag force, which is also called
the growth force, will retard the detachment of the bubble. The
growth force has a positive relation with the growth rate of the
bubble. Furthermore, the experiment is conducted at atmosphere
pressure, in which a bubble has a higher growth rates according
to the experimental research of Chen et al. [25]. Therefore it is dif-
ficult for a bubble to detach from the heated surface due to the sig-
nificant effect of the growth force. Secondly, bubbles with large
Fig. 4. Definition of bubble diameter in narrow rectangular channel. diameter easily reaching to the gap size will attach to the glass
wall, and thus few lift-off bubbles are observed in the experiment.
Finally, even though the bubble tip does not attach to the glass
circular edged shape with a diameter of the gap, as shown in
wall, the wall-lubrication force (also known as wall-lift force)
Fig. 4(b). The equivalent diameter is estimated by a spherical bubble
due to the velocity distribution change around the bubble near
which has an identical volume with this drum-like bubble, hence
the glass wall also prevents the lift-off of the bubble. Barnocky
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3 3 2 and Davis [26] and Antal et al. [27] pointed out that the wall-lubri-
3
De ¼ Dx þ Dy  2h h þ h ð4Þ cation has an inverse proportion relation with the distance be-
8
tween the bubble tip and the wall. Consequently, the wall-
where h is the height of the narrow rectangular channel. Thus all of lubrication force increases with the growth of the bubble and also
the equivalent bubble diameters can be estimated as hinders the detachment of the bubbles from the heated surface in a
8 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi narrow channel. The second and third factor which prevents the
>
< 3 Dx Dy Dx þDy Dx þDy
6h lift-off of the bubble is significant in a narrow channel. This indi-
2 2
De ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð5Þ cates the bubble sliding in a narrow channel will totally different
: 3 3 D þ D  2h2 h þ h3
> Dx þDy
>h
8 x y 2

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Typical experiment phenomenon

In general, whether a bubble lifts off from the wall should be

judged from the side view of the test section. Because of the over-
lapping of the bubbles and the restriction of the illumination con-
dition in the narrow channel, bubble image sequence is obtained
from the front view of the narrow rectangular channel, as shown
in Fig. 3. Although whether a bubble has detached from the heated
surface cannot be directly determinate by this image acquisition
configuration, there will be a contact area in the front view of
the bubble image if the bubble remain attached to the heated sur-
face, as shown in Fig. 5. Despite some of the bubble contact areas
are blurred due to the worse illumination conditions, this feature
can be used as a rule to determine whether a bubble has lifted
off from the heater wall. The contact area formed by the Fig. 6. Image sequence of the first type bubble.
94 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99

from that of conventional channel. The characteristics of the slid-

ing bubbles will be discussed in detail in the following sections.

4.2. Fundamental features of bubble sliding in narrow channel

Two types of bubbles were observed as following.

(1) Generated bubbles grow up in the nucleation sites and then

slide along the heated surface. After growing to their maxi-
mum diameter, they begin to shrink until their disappear-
ance. This kind of bubbles remains attaching to the heated
surface during their lifetime which is very short, as shown
in Fig. 6.
(2) Some bubbles nucleated in the domain of the observation
window have lower growth rate or slide from the upstream
flow during which keep the diameter almost unchanged and
are classified as the second type, as shown in Fig. 7. These
bubbles finally condense in the channel or leave the obser-
vation window.

Bubble sliding velocity, equivalent diameter and position of the

first type bubble (Fig. 6) and second type bubble (Fig. 7) were mea-
sured and shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, respectively. From Fig. 8 we
can see that bubble generated on the nucleate site and grew
rapidly. After growing to its maximum diameter it began to shrink
and collapsed in the end because the bulk water is subcooled. Max-
imum diameter of the bubble is comparable with the width of the

Fig. 8. Diameter, velocity and relative position of the first type bubble
(G = 304.1 kg/m2s, DTsub,in = 23.4 °C, q00 ¼ 222:7kW=m2 ).

narrow rectangular channel. It can be seen from the bubble veloc-

Fig. 7. Image sequence of the second type bubble.
ity curve in Fig. 8 that the bubble immediately departs from the
nucleation site by sliding upward on the vertical heater wall after
its incipience(less than 0.2 ms), as was also observed by Okawa
et al. [28]. The sliding bubbles were accelerated to a velocity com-
parable with local liquid velocity within 1ms. This may be attrib-
uted to the fact that bubbles quickly break though the boundary
layer of the liquid with the rapid growth in bubble size. The bub-
bles departed from their nucleation sites and slid along the heated
surface within a very short time after generation under the effect of
drag force and buoyancy force. Although the equivalent diameter
of the bubble increased at the beginning and decreased later, the
sliding velocity of the bubble was increasing all the while.
The local fluid velocity in the center of the bubble is also
depicted in Fig. 8. The calculation of the fluid velocity distribution
is similar with the method of Situ et al. [17]. Because of the
special configuration of the narrow channel in this work,
Troniewski and Ulbrich [29]’s results for rectangular channel is
adopted to obtain the friction factor of the narrow channel. The
calculation process is demonstrated in detail in Appendix A. The
bubble sliding velocity in Fig. 8 is smaller than the local fluid
velocity in the beginning of the sliding, thus the shear lift force
is against the heated surface and pushes the bubble to lift off.
After that, the velocity of the sliding bubble increases and is high-
er than the local fluid velocity which induces a negative lift force
compared to the previous stage. This will retard the departure of
the bubble from the heater wall. Bubble sliding trajectory under
growth stage is similar with that of Thorncroft et al. [20] for
vertical upward flow boiling.
 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99 95

Fig. 10. The probability density distribution of bubble velocity under different
conditions.

probability density, namely the probability of bubbles belonging

Fig. 9. Diameter, velocity and relative position of the second type bubble
(G = 760.2 kg/m2s, DTsub,in = 13.2 °C, q00 ¼ 192:3kW=m2 ).
to a certain velocity range. It can be seen from the figure that the
bubble velocity approximately follows a normal distribution. The
mean and the standard deviation of the distribution function vary
with the change of the working conditions. Klausner et al. [30] re-
ported a similar distribution of bubble departure diameters. Later,
they proposed a mechanistic model, with some reasonable
assumptions, to predict the distribution function of bubble depar-
ture and lift-off diameters [31]. It might be a promising approach
to calculate the distribution function of the bubble sliding veloci-
ties. Effect of the working conditions on mean bubble velocity is
studied in the following sections.

4.4. Distribution of bubble diameter

The variation of the equivalent diameter, sliding velocity and
relative position of the second type bubble are depicted in Fig. 9. Fig. 11 shows the effect of the heat flux on the cumulative dis-
The bubble is sliding from the upstream flow into the observation tribution of the bubble equivalent diameter at constant inlet tem-
window, after sliding a long distance it leaves the observation win- perature and liquid mass flux. The distribution of the bubble
dow. The equivalent diameter of the bubble slightly increased as diameters indicates a significant quantity of small bubbles in the
can be seen from the diameter curve of Fig. 9. This indicates that captured image sequence. There are about 50% bubbles of which
the evaporation rate due to the superheating of the heater wall is diameters are smaller than 0.5 mm. And just a few bubbles exceed
slightly greater than the condensation rate due to the subcooling the width of the narrow rectangular channel. It can be seen that the
of the bulk fluid. The proportion of these bubbles increases with proportion of larger bubbles slightly increase with the increase of
the decrease of the subcooling of inlet fluid. It should be noted here the heat flux. This result may attribute to the higher evaporation
that the proportion of the second type bubbles does not increase
with the increase of the wall heat flux. It is hence can be concluded
that the discrepancy of the variation of diameters for the above
two type bubbles is primarily caused by the different subcooling
degrees of the local fluid.The bubble sliding velocity in Fig. 9 is al-
ways lower than the velocity of the local fluid. Thus the shear lift
force pushes the bubble to detach from the heated surface while
bubble sliding along the surface.

4.3. Distribution of bubble sliding velocities

The estimated velocity of a single bubble fluctuates significantly

due to the unsteady temperature and velocity field of the sur-
rounding fluid, the bubble condensation and evaporation and the
unavoidable error during the measurement of the sliding velocity.
These factors induce a difficulty in analyzing the bubble sliding
characteristics. It is hence necessary to study the stochastic distri-
bution of the bubble sliding velocity. The probability density of the
bubble velocity is depicted in Fig. 10. The horizontal axis of the
Fig. 10 is the bubble sliding velocity and the vertical axis is the Fig. 11. Effects of heat flux on bubble size distribution.
96 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99

Fig. 12. Effects of inlet subcooling on bubble size distribution.

rate under a higher heat flux. The above results agree with that of
Puli and Kumar [24] and Maurus et al. [32].
The dependence of the bubble size distribution on inlet fluid
temperature at constant heat flux and liquid mass flux is shown
in Fig. 12. In contrast with previous case, the effect of the inlet sub-
cooling is more significant. A decrease of inlet subcooling induces
an increase of the number of large bubbles and a decrease of small
bubbles. The size of a bubble primarily depends on the evaporation
and condensation process. A higher bubble condensation rate is
presented in higher subcooling which induces larger proportion
of smaller bubbles, vice versa in the lower subcooling fluid.

4.5. Effect of conditions on the mean bubble sliding parameters

Based on the boiling heat transfer model of Tsung-Chang and

Bankoff [15], the enhancement of the sliding bubbles on heat
transfer is related with bubble diameters, relative sliding velocities
between bubbles and the velocities of the local fluid and the life-
time of sliding bubbles. Mean values of these parameters under
different conditions will be discussed in the following subsections.

4.5.1. Bubble sliding velocity

The effects of heat flux and inlet subcooling on bubble mean
sliding velocities at different mass flow rate are shown in
Fig. 13. It can be seen that the sliding velocity increases with
the decrease of the inlet subcooling. This may be attributed to
the following reasons. On the one hand, the specific volume of
the fluid increases with the decrease of the inlet subcooling. This
results the increase of local liquid velocity under constant mass
flow rate, thus the bubble is accelerated due to the effect of the
drag force. On the other hand, the bubble growth rate increases
and the condensation rate decreases with the decrease of the sub-
cooling of the bulk fluid, leading to larger bubbles under lower
subcooling conditions, as shown in Fig. 12. Because of the effect
of the drag force on bubble sliding, larger bubbles have a larger
sliding velocity. Fig. 13. Effects of heat flux and inlet subcooling on bubble sliding velocity. (a)
Which of the above causes is more important can be deter- G = 304.1 kg/m2s (b) G = 608.2 kg/m2s (c) G = 760.2 kg/m2s.
mined as the following analysis. Take Fig. 13(a) as an example,
for water at subcooling of 24.5 and 35.1 °C under atmosphere pres-
sure the density is about 975 and 981 kg/m3, and the velocity of The effect of the heat flux on bubble sliding velocity is more
the main fluid is about 0.311 and 0.309 m/s. The difference be- complex than that of subcooling. The sliding velocity increases
tween bubble velocities is much greater than that of fluid velocity with increasing the heat flux at first, whereas decreases with the
difference. We can conclude bubble velocity change caused by the increase of heat flux when the heat flux increased over a certain le-
fluid density variation is not significant than that of bubble size vel. The transition heat flux of this behavior decreases with the de-
variation. Thus the effect of fluid subcooling is more important. crease of the inlet subcooled degree. The decrease of the bubble
 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99 97

sliding velocity is mainly caused by the increase of surface tension

force due to attachment of the bubble tip to the glass surface. If the
diameter of bubble is larger than the width of the narrow channel
the sliding velocity will decrease with the increase of bubble diam-
eter. More bubbles with diameter larger than the gap of the chan-
nel will appear at lower inlet subcooling under certain heat flux.

Fig. 15. Bubble numbers of an image sequence.

Thus the transition heat flux decreases with the decrease of the in-
let subcooled degree. For mass flux of 760.2 kg/m2s and inlet sub-
cooling of 13.4 °C in Fig. 13(c), the transition heat flux was not
attained in this experiment because of the instability of two-phase
flow induced by the aggregation of bubbles.
The variation of mean relative velocity between bubble sliding
velocity and local liquid velocity with heat flux and inlet fluid sub-
cooling under different mass flux is shown in Fig. 14. The mean rel-
ative velocity of the bubbles can be estimated through the
difference between the mean bubble velocity and the fluid velocity.
All of the mean relative velocities are positive, thus indicating that
the bubble velocity is greater than the local liquid velocity. It is
interesting to note that the variation of the relative sliding velocity
is similar with the trend of bubble sliding velocity in Fig. 13. Be-
sides, there are also transition points as the relative velocity varied
with the increase of the wall heat flux.

4.5.2. Bubble density

The bubble quantity varies randomly in different frames of an
image sequence under a certain condition. This is depicted in
Fig. 15.
The variation of the bubble numbers not only affects the heat
transfer enhancement induced by sliding bubbles, but also changes
the distribution of void fractions during a convection flow boiling.
Bubble numbers in a unit area is denoted by bubble density, which
can be expressed as:
N
C¼ ð6Þ
A
where N is the bubble number in a single frame of a sequence, and A
is the area of the observation window.
The above definition indicates that the bubble density has a po-
sitive proportion relation with the nucleation site density and the
bubble lift time. Then the bubble density is reduced to
f  tf
C¼ ð7Þ
A
where f and tf are the nucleation site density and the mean lifetime
of the bubble, respectively.
On the other hand, based on of Eq. (6), the void fraction in a nar-
row rectangular channel can be expressed as a function of bubble
density and equivalent diameter, viz.

pN  De 3 pC  De 3
Fig. 14. Effects of heat flux and inlet subcooling on bubble relative velocity. (a) a¼ ¼ ð8Þ
6A  h 6h
G = 304.1 kg/m2s (b) G = 608.2 kg/m2s (c) G = 760.2 kg/m2s.
98 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99
Fig. 16. Effects of heat flux and inlet subcooling on bubble density. (a) G = 304.1 kg/
m2s (b) G = 608.2 kg/m2s (c) G = 760.2 kg/m2s.
It should be noted that the void fraction mentioned above is the
volumetric void fraction but not the superficial one. The depen-
dence of the bubble density on heat flux at constant mass flux is
shown in Fig. 16. It is obvious that the bubble density is strongly
dependent on the heat flux and increases with the increase of
the heat flux. Fig. 16 also shows that a decrease of the inlet
subcooling leads to an increase of bubble density. However the
mechanism of the above similar results is different. The increase
of the bubble density with increasing the wall heat flux is mainly
caused by the increase of the nucleation site density, as depicted
in Eq. (7). But the effect of the inlet subcooling on the bubble den-
sity is primarily induced by increasing of bubble lifetime in a lower
subcooling fluid. The dependence of the bubble lifetime on inlet
subcooling is obtained in the previous part of this paper, the results
of which show that the percentage of the second type bubbles (a
longer lifetime) increases with decreasing the inlet subcooling.
5. Conclusions
A high-speed digital camera was applied to observe the charac-
teristics of sliding bubbles in subcooled upward flow boiling in a
narrow channel under atmosphere pressure condition. The re-
corded bubble sequences were processed automatically by an
appropriate algorithm to obtain the quantified characteristics of
sliding bubbles. From the analysis results the following conclu-
sions can be drawn:
1. Immediately after the incipience, bubbles depart from the
nucleation sites and slide along the heated surface. Vapor bub-
ble lift-off is not generally observed in the narrow rectangular
channel due to the growth force and the wall lubrication force.
The narrow channel not only confines the growth of the vapor
bubble, but also affects the behavior of sliding bubbles.
2. Two kinds of vapor bubbles can be observed in this experiment.
Some bubbles have shorter lifetime and their diameters and
velocities change quickly, while the others can survive for a
long time and their diameters and velocities keep approxi-
mately unvaried. Increasing the inlet subcooling will increase
the percentage of the first kind of bubbles.
3. The distributions of the bubble velocity and equivalent diame-
ter are obtained in order to reveal the detailed features of the
sliding bubbles. The velocity of the sliding bubble approxi-
mately follows a normal distribution. While the distribution
of the bubble diameters depends weakly on the heat flux but
significantly on the inlet subcooling.
4. Both of the mean sliding velocity and mean relative velocity
increases with decreasing inlet subcooling. Mean sliding veloc-
ity increases with increasing the heat flux at first while
decreases with the increase of heat flux after reaching to a cer-
tain level, as well as with the relative velocity.
5. When the heat flux increases, more nucleate sites should there-
fore be active, thus inducing a rapid increase of the bubble den-
sity. Considering the condensation effect of the inlet fluid, the
surviving time of the bubble decreases with increasing inlet
subcooling, then the bubble density decreases.
It should be indicated here that the bubble sliding behaviors in
narrow channel need to be further studied in order to better under-
stand the stochastic characteristics of these fundamental parame-
ters relating to bubble sliding, as well as the mechanism of heat
transfer enhancement.
Acknowledgements
The experimental facilities and numerical software were sup-
ported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Univer-
sities (No. HEUCFZ1008), Science and Technology on Reactor
System Design Technology Laboratory Fund, Heilongjiang Province
Foundation for Returnees (No. LC2011C18), the Heilongjiang Prov-
ince Post-doctor Scientific Research Fund (LBH-Q10131).
 S. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 57 (2013) 89–99 99

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