Abstract
The behaviors of bubble nucleation and growth in liquid 3He were investigated visually using the shadowgraph method. We have constructed two types of cryostats and sample cells for measurements between 0.5 and 1K. The 3He bubble that formed on the heated copper surface was spheroid-like due to a low surface tension and small buoyancy force. The time for required for the bubble to grow and separate from the surface was 14ms at a heat flux of q = 8=10-5 W/cm2 and bulk liquid 3He temperature of 0.7K. This means that the bubble growth rate is high as compared to other low-temperature liquids. The bubble size, number of bubbles separating from the heated surface in a specific time and the rising velocity of the bubbles were analyzed using photographs obtained from a high-speed camera as a function of heat flux and liquid 3He temperature. In the region of large heat flux, large bubbles formed by bubble accumulation covered the copper surface and the increase in bubble number as q increased became insignificant. In this region, the amount of heat flux carried by bubbles as latent vaporization heat was approximately 60% of the applied heat flux. The characteristic heat transfer curve of liquid 3He measured previously by our group could be explained qualitatively by these boiling behaviors.
