Overview of pool boiling heat transfer studies in variable gravity
Résumé
Boiling studies under microgravity conditions require a perfect control of ail the involved parameters: gravity level, g-jitter, the time of experimentation, the heater size and geometry, the size of the bailing vessel, the fluid properties... In this paper. an attempt is made to expose the main works achieved over the past fifty years on boiling in variable gravity level. More particularly, the experimental conditions during these different experiments as well as a comparison of the different results and conclusions proposed by the authors are presented, According to this analysis, all the experimental conditions differ notably and no clear conclusion can be drawn about boiling phenomena under microgravity conditions. Nevertheless it seems that the gravity level has little influence on the boiling heat transfer. Many questions are still open and further experiments are expected to yield improvements in the understanding of the basic boiling physics.