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Thermodynamics of Steam Bubble Dynamics

1) The document discusses a thermodynamic argument for why steam bubbles either shrink and collapse or continue rising in a liquid. 2) It refers to a Mollier diagram and the process that a hypothetical steam bubble undergoes as it forms and moves upward through different levels. 3) The key part of the argument is comparing the amount of heat needed to evaporate liquid to the amount of heat available when a steam bubble condenses.

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Juan Ponce Manríquez
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84 views1 page

Thermodynamics of Steam Bubble Dynamics

1) The document discusses a thermodynamic argument for why steam bubbles either shrink and collapse or continue rising in a liquid. 2) It refers to a Mollier diagram and the process that a hypothetical steam bubble undergoes as it forms and moves upward through different levels. 3) The key part of the argument is comparing the amount of heat needed to evaporate liquid to the amount of heat available when a steam bubble condenses.

Uploaded by

Juan Ponce Manríquez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

7  Dry-Steam Power Plants 135

Fig. 7.3 Mollier diagram for water; M 5 maximum enthalpy point on the saturation line.

McNitt [6] offers a thermodynamic argument to explain this phenomenon based on


the amount of heat needed to evaporate a unit of liquid relative to the amount of heat
available when a steam bubble condenses.
Referring to Fig. 7.4, when a hypothetical bubble forms at level j and begins to
move upward, there are two possibilities: either it will shrink and eventually collapse
or it will continue to rise. If it collapses, it would release its heat of condensation to
the surrounding liquid. If that amount of heat is sufficient to create another bubble
at the higher level, then a continuous steam phase will be created. If not, then the
liquid will form the continuous phase. Since this hypothesis calls for the internal
exchange of heat between the vapor and liquid phases, the overall process may be
viewed as adiabatic, and the process followed by the bubble may be modeled as
isenthalpic. The lines in the temperature-entropy diagram labeled j-i represent lines
of constant enthalpy.
The argument turns on the relative sizes of the following two terms:
qC  hg ðPj Þ 2 hf ðPi Þ ð7:1Þ

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