Numerical experiments on evaporation and explosive boiling of ultra-thin liquid argon film on aluminum nanostructure substrate.
Evaporation and explosive boiling of ultra-thin liquid film are of great significant fundamental importance for both science and engineering applications. The evaporation and explosive boiling of ultra-thin liquid film absorbed on an aluminum nanostructure solid wall are investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations. The simulated system consists of three regions: liquid argon, vapor argon, and an aluminum substrate decorated with nanostructures of different heights. Those simulations begin with an initial configuration for the complex liquid-vapor-solid system, followed by an equilibrating system at 90 K, and conclude with two different jump temperatures, including 150 and 310 K which are far beyond the critical temperature. The space and time dependences of temperature, pressure, density number, and net evaporation rate are monitored to investigate the phase transition process on a flat surface with and without nanostructures. The simulation results reveal that the nanostructures are of great help to raise the heat transfer efficiency and that evaporation rate increases with the nanostructures' height in a certain range.
Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Xidian University, No. 2 South Taibai Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071 China ; State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, No. 99 Yanxiang Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710054 China ; Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
Weidong
W
Wang
Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Xidian University, No. 2 South Taibai Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071 China.
Haiyan
H
Zhang
Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Xidian University, No. 2 South Taibai Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071 China.
Conghui
C
Tian
Department of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Xidian University, No. 2 South Taibai Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710071 China.
Xiaojie
X
Meng
Evaporation; Explosive boiling; Heat transfer efficiency; Molecular dynamics simulations; Phase transition; Ultra-thin liquid film