Study on the effect of foreign particle on bubble nucleation by using molecular dynamics simulation

To promote the engineering application of additive in enhancing nucleate boiling, the effect of foreign particles on bubble nucleation is investigated by the molecular dynamics simulation method. Some foreign atoms are added into the pure argon system with a proportion of 5%. The liquid is heated by a hydrophilic smooth platinum substrate to achieve bubble nucleation. The results show that foreign atoms have significant impacts on bubble nucleation. Compared with the pure liquid system, the bubble nucleation efficiencies in the aspects of the incipient nucleation time and temperature are promoted by the foreign atom with a smaller energy parameter than argon atom but decreased with the increasing energy parameter. Then, the intrinsic regime of the difference between pure liquid and mixed liquid in bubble nucleation is fully illustrated based on the competition between atomic potential energy and atomic kinetic energy, which are the restriction and impetus for bubble nucleation, respectively. Furthermore, based on the influencing regime of foreign atoms in bubble nucleation, a further application of foreign atoms in controlling the nucleation position is developed. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.