Effects of Surface Wettability on Rapid Boiling and Bubble Nucleation: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Molecular dynamics simulation is conducted to study the effects of surface wettability on rapid boiling and bubble nucleation over smooth surface. The simple L-J liquid is heated by smooth metal surface with different conditions of wettability in cuboid simulation box. The results show that surface wettability has significant impact on phase transition of liquid film. When the heating temperature is 200K, the rapid boiling occurs above strongly hydrophilic and weakly hydrophilic surfaces; however, only slow evaporation phenomenon occurs above weakly hydrophobic surface within 2.5-ns simulation time. The reason is that the interaction between argon and platinum atoms is stronger over hydrophilic surface, which has higher efficiency in heat transfer. Furthermore, based on the difference of surface wettability in heat transfer efficiency, the surface with nonuniform wettability is constructed, and the central region is more hydrophilic than surrounding region. The growing process of bubble nucleus can be completely observed above the more hydrophilic region.