Visualization of the Evolution of a Single Vapor Bubble During Boiling of a Subcooled Liquid: Experience in Automating the Processing of High-Speed Video Recording Results

Abstract

Subcooled liquid boiling makes it possible to remove extremely high heat flux densities (tens, and under certain conditions even hundreds of MW/m2). This method is used for cooling rocket nozzles, in metallurgy, in thermonuclear power and special installations (cooling of beam targets), pulsed magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) installations. However, the calculations of this process are based on purely empirical correlations. The lack of experimental data on the characteristics of bubbles (size evolution, life time, formation frequency) hinders the development of mathematical models and calculation methods. The paper presents a program developed in the Python 3.10 environment for automated processing of high-speed video recordings of the evolution of a single bubble during boiling of a subcooled liquid. Comparison of frame processing, carried out «manually» and with the help of the developed program, showed a fairly high agreement between the results. The developed method makes it possible to significantly reduce the time spent on processing the experimental material and to include a significantly larger array of experimental data in the analysis.