Bubble cavitation in a microchannel

The effects of microchannel size, mass flow rate and heat flux on boiling incipience or bubble cavitation in a microchannel are studied in this paper. The well-known concept of survival of a bubble cavity is extended, and the classical kinetics of nucleation is introduced to study bubble nucleation in water flowing in a silicon microchannel. The effects of contact angle, dissolved gas, and the existence of microcavities and corners in the microchannel on bubble’s nucleation/cavitation temperature are estimated. With this information, a numerical solution is carried out to study the effects of mass flow rate and heat flux on bubble nucleation/cavitation in microchannels. The results of this analysis provide further physical insight on boiling heat transfer in microchannels.