Academic literature on the topic 'Thermal bubble'

We investigated the nanoscale thermal bubble nucleation based on the principle of Coulter counter. With micro-nanofabrication technologies, a device was designed and fabricated, and a detection platform was set up which was used to investigate the thermal bubble nucleation of aqueous solution confined in a nanochannel with a cross size of about 100 nm×100 nm. Results show that with the temperature of the solution confined in the nanochannel increasing, the current through the channel increases first and then decreases, and vanishes after a fluctuating period. It can be found that the generating thermal bubbles can hinder the current flowing through the nanochannel. In addition, the shrinking and expanding of thermal bubbles’ volume correspond to the increase and decrease of the current. Finally, the thermal bubbles block the nanochannel entirely. Through the experiment results, our device can be applied to investigate the complex behaviors of thermal bubble produced in aqueous solution confined in nanochannels, effectively.

Tracer diffusion in amorphous solid is studied by mean of nB-bubble statistic. The nB-bubble is defined as a group of atoms around a spherical void and large bubble that represents a structural defect which could be eliminated under thermal annealing. It was found that amorphous alloys such as CoxB100−x (x=90, 81.5 and 70) and Fe80P20 suffer from a large number of vacancy bubbles which function like diffusion vehicle. The concentration of vacancy bubble weakly depends on temperature, but essentially on the relaxation degree of considered sample. The diffusion coefficient estimated for proposed mechanism via vacancy bubbles is in a reasonable agreement with experiment for actual amorphous alloys. The relaxation effect for tracer diffusion in amorphous alloys is interpreted by the elimination of vacancy bubbles under thermal annealing.

Vapour bubbles nucleating at micro-cavities etched into the silicon bottom plate of a cylindrical Rayleigh–Bénard sample (diameter $D=8.8$ cm, aspect ratio ${\it\Gamma}\equiv D/L\simeq 1.00$ where $L$ is the sample height) were visualized from the top and from the side. A triangular array of cylindrical micro-cavities (with a diameter of $30~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$ and a depth of $100~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$) covered a circular centred area (diameter of 2.5 cm) of the bottom plate. Heat was applied to the sample only over this central area while cooling was over the entire top-plate area. Bubble sizes and frequencies of departure from the bottom plate are reported for a range of bottom-plate superheats $T_{b}-T_{on}$ ($T_{b}$ is the bottom-plate temperature, $T_{on}$ is the onset temperature of bubble nucleation) from 3 to 12 K for three different cavity separations. The difference $T_{b}-T_{t}\simeq 16$ K between $T_{b}$ and the top plate temperature $T_{t}$ was kept fixed while the mean temperature $T_{m}=(T_{b}+T_{t})/2$ was varied, leading to a small range of the Rayleigh number $Ra$ from $1.4\times 10^{10}$ to $2.0\times 10^{10}$. The time between bubble departures from a given cavity decreased exponentially with increasing superheat and was independent of cavity separation. The contribution of the bubble latent heat to the total enhancement of heat transferred due to bubble nucleation was found to increase with superheat, reaching up to 25 %. The bubbly flow was examined in greater detail for a superheat of 10 K and $Ra\simeq 1.9\times 10^{10}$. The condensation and/or dissolution rates of departed bubbles revealed two regimes: the initial rate was influenced by steep thermal gradients across the thermal boundary layer near the plate and was two orders of magnitude larger than the final condensation and/or dissolution rate that prevailed once the rising bubbles were in the colder bulk flow of nearly uniform temperature. The dynamics of thermal plumes was studied qualitatively in the presence and absence of nucleating bubbles. It was found that bubbles enhanced the plume velocity by a factor of four or so and drove a large-scale circulation (LSC). Nonetheless, even in the presence of bubbles the plumes and LSC had a characteristic velocity which was smaller by a factor of five or so than the bubble-rise velocity in the bulk. In the absence of bubbles there was strongly turbulent convection but no LSC, and plumes on average rose vertically.

Transient bubble formation experiments are investigated on polysilicon micro-resisters having dimensions of 95 μm in length, 10 μm or 5 μm in width, and 0.5 μm in thickness. Micro resisters act as both resistive heating sources and temperature transducers simultaneously to measure the transient temperature responses beneath the thermal bubbles. The micro bubble nucleation processes can be classified into three groups depending on the levels of the input current. When the input current level is low, no bubble is nucleated. In the middle range of the input current, a single spherical bubble is nucleated with a waiting period up to 2 sec while the wall temperature can drop up to 8°C depending on the magnitude of the input current. After the formation of a thermal bubble, the resister temperature rises and reaches a steady state eventually. The bubble growth rate is found proportional to the square root of time that is similar to the heat diffusion controlled model as proposed in the macro scale boiling experiments. In the group of high input current, a single bubble is nucleated immediately after the current is applied. A first-order model is proposed to characterize the transient bubble nucleation behavior in the micro-scale and compared with experimental measurements.