Multiscale Dynamic Growth and Energy Transport of Droplets during Condensation

Condensation is an important physical process and has direct relevance for a range of engineering applications, including heat transfer, antifrosting, and self-cleaning. Understanding the mechanism of droplet growth during condensation is an important aspect, but past works have not typically considered the dynamics of the multiscale process. In this paper, we developed a dynamic growth model, which considers the continuous and multiscale nature of the droplet growth process from several nanometers to hundreds of microns. This model couples the transient phase change heat transfer and two-phase flow both inside and outside the droplet. Accordingly, the energy transport is distinct from the classical pure conduction model. We show that convection near the liquid-vapor interface and inside the droplets plays an increasingly important role as droplets grow and finally dominates the energy transport process. Driven by strong convection, the droplets mix well and the discrete layers of temperature observed in the pure conduction model disappear at the microscale. This model that considers convection can lead to over 4 times higher predicted overall heat transfer than that obtained with the pure conduction model. The interfacial mass flow through the liquid-vapor interface is the dominant factor responsible for the strong convection. We studied the critical radius where convection starts to have a significant influence on droplet growth under different subcooling temperatures and contact angles. Droplets have smaller critical radii under larger subcooling temperatures or larger contact angles, ranging from 0.5 to 20 μm. This work identifies the modes of energy transport in condensation at different scales, which not only enhances our fundamental understanding of individual droplet growth but provides design guidelines for various dropwise and jumping-droplet condensation research.