Digital computer simulation of dropwise condensation from equilibrium droplet to detectable size

A computer simulation of dropwise condensation of steam on a 240 x 240 mu m surface with 60,000 randomly spaced nucleation sites is described. The maximum drop radius achieved was 3.9 mu m, 0.21 ms after the start of condensation. Uniform radii drop generations noticed by Rose and Glicksman (1973) had not developed completely by 0.21 ms, although predicted to do so. The characteristic profile on the drop size histogram predicted by Tanaka (1979) extends to drop sizes smaller than have been observed in experiments. A peak heat transfer coefficient of just over 2 MW/m(2)K was obtained, about twice the value measured by Tanasawa et al. (1978) immediately after the condensing surface had been wiped. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.