Interaction between vapor bubbles during flow boiling heat transfer in microchannels

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Odumosu, Odumuyiwa A., Ye, Mengqi, Wang, Tianyou, Che, Zhizhao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918534550913024
author Odumosu, Odumuyiwa A.
Ye, Mengqi
Wang, Tianyou
Che, Zhizhao
author_facet Odumosu, Odumuyiwa A.
Ye, Mengqi
Wang, Tianyou
Che, Zhizhao
contents Microchannel flow boiling is an efficient cooling solution for high-power-density miniaturized systems. Many studies on microchannel flow boiling focused on the dynamics of single vapor bubbles, while neglecting the interaction between bubbles, which is important in relevant applications. Here, numerical simulations are carried out to study the interaction between multiple vapor bubbles in microchannel flow boiling. The results show that for different numbers of bubbles in the microchannels with the same initial size and position of leading bubbles, the bubble size in a single-bubble microchannel is larger compared to the leading bubble of multiple-bubble cases because of heat absorption by the vaporization at the rear bubbles. As the initial volume ratio between the leading bubble and the rear bubble decreases, the leading bubble size in the downstream becomes smaller because of the reduced contact with the superheated thermal boundary layer. With increasing the Reynolds number, both the leading and the trailing bubbles increase slightly in size in the upstream of the heated region, because the bubbles at higher Reynolds number move faster and firstly get in contact with the superheated fluid. The increase in the bottom wall thickness increases the growth rate of the multiple bubble sizes with earlier bubble coalescence because of the higher upstream wall temperature by heat conduction in the solid wall.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_01654
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Interaction between vapor bubbles during flow boiling heat transfer in microchannels
Odumosu, Odumuyiwa A.
Ye, Mengqi
Wang, Tianyou
Che, Zhizhao
Fluid Dynamics
Microchannel flow boiling is an efficient cooling solution for high-power-density miniaturized systems. Many studies on microchannel flow boiling focused on the dynamics of single vapor bubbles, while neglecting the interaction between bubbles, which is important in relevant applications. Here, numerical simulations are carried out to study the interaction between multiple vapor bubbles in microchannel flow boiling. The results show that for different numbers of bubbles in the microchannels with the same initial size and position of leading bubbles, the bubble size in a single-bubble microchannel is larger compared to the leading bubble of multiple-bubble cases because of heat absorption by the vaporization at the rear bubbles. As the initial volume ratio between the leading bubble and the rear bubble decreases, the leading bubble size in the downstream becomes smaller because of the reduced contact with the superheated thermal boundary layer. With increasing the Reynolds number, both the leading and the trailing bubbles increase slightly in size in the upstream of the heated region, because the bubbles at higher Reynolds number move faster and firstly get in contact with the superheated fluid. The increase in the bottom wall thickness increases the growth rate of the multiple bubble sizes with earlier bubble coalescence because of the higher upstream wall temperature by heat conduction in the solid wall.
title Interaction between vapor bubbles during flow boiling heat transfer in microchannels
topic Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01654