Applicability of Statistics and Probability Theory to Nucleate Pool Boiling Heat Transfer

Abstract Much has been learned about nucleate pool boiling over the last sixty years through experimental investigation and recently, it has become possible to predict the relationships governing the nucleation, growth and departure or collapse of bubbles computationally. However, it has not been possible to develop a theory capable of predicting the rate of heat transfer because of the inability to incorporate surface conditions in a comprehensive boiling heat transfer model. A method is proposed to simulate the surface conditions through the interactions of a large population of potentially active nucleation sites and a much smaller population of dominant nucleation sites using Monte Carlo simulation.