Abstract
Since Nukiyama's pioneering experiment and findings in the 1930s many researchers have further investigated the boiling process and developed empirical or semi-empirical methods to predict the boiling heat transfer coefficient. However, several details of the local heat transport phenomena are still not fully understood. The heat transfer from the heated wall to the bulk fluid is extremely complex and many aspects are involved: nucleation, dynamic wetting characteristics, surface tension and other fluid properties, gravitation, bulk subcooling, etc… Only in the recent years experimental methods reached spatial and temporal resolutions that allow observing the boiling process on the scales of these individual aspects and local dynamic phenomena in the two-phase boundary layer. Similarly, numerical methods reached a level of robustness and resolution that allows studying the influence of these aspects and phenomena in a computer simulation. This work will give an overview on recent developments and modern experimental and numerical methods nucleate boiling heat transfer research, Results from combined generic experiments and numerical simulations are presented. They give a deep insight into the local and transient transport phenomena in the two-phase boundary layer.
