Bubbling features from a single artificial cavity

Abstract Dynamical behavior of nucleation sites is one of the critical factors in boiling, but not many researches, especially experimental, exist in this area. In this paper, a single artificial cavity was manufactured on a thin Cu plate and was heated by laser in a saturated water pool. Conical, cylindrical and reentrant cavities were tested. Conical cavities showed highly intermittent bubbling with large temperature fluctuations, requiring high superheat. Reconstructed phase map from temperature–time series revealed the nonlinear behavior of bubbling, and analysis showed strong possibility of low dimensional chaos. Cylindrical cavities showed continuous bubbling from low superheat with small temperature fluctuations and return map was constructed from bubbling interval. Reentrant cavities showed similar but slightly more complicated behavior than those of cylindrical cavities.