Heterogeneous nucleation on ultra smooth surfaces

An experimental investigation is presented with heterogeneous nucleate boiling on ultra smooth metallic surfaces (30–365 nm RMS roughness), including brass, unpolished stainless steel, and electropolished stainless steel. The fluids used for the investigation are highly wetting pentane and butane. It is observed that the incipient superheat is low for all cases considered, despite the fact that no vapor trapping cavities are available for incipience at low superheat. These data provide further evidence that in addition to vapor trapping, another mechanism must be available for heterogeneous nucleation in boiling systems. The boiling curves are presented for the different surface/fluid combinations. It is found that the heat transfer rate on the brass surface is considerably better than that on the stainless steel surfaces due to the ease with which nucleation sites are formed. In contrast, nucleation site formation on stainless steel is considerably more sparse than that on brass.