Theoretical description of the nucleation of vapor bubbles in a superheated fluid

2008/07/21 by James F. Lutsko · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Phase Equilibria and Thermodynamics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions

paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/83/46007

published as EPL 83 (2008) 46007 · To appear in Europhysics Letters

arxiv created 2008/07/21 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The nucleation of vapor bubbles within a superheated fluid is studied using density functional theory. The nudged elastic band technique is used to find the minimum energy pathway from the metastable uniform liquid to the stable uniform gas thus emphasizing the analogy between the the nucleation problem and that of chemical reactions. The result is both an accurate determination of the critical nucleus and an unbiased description of the density profile at various points along the path between the free energy extrema. This calculation is compared to two other methods: the use of parametrized profiles and constrained minimization of the free energy. The results indicate that the recent claim, based on the constraint method, that bubble nucleation and growth involves an activated instability is incorrect.

Citations

• The nature of the liquid-vapour interface and other topics in the statistical mechanics of non-uniform, classical fluids
• Density functional theory of inhomogeneous liquids. II. A fundamental measure approach

Cited by

• Density functional theory of inhomogeneous liquids. III. Liquid-vapor nucleation
• Nucleation of colloids and macromolecules in a finite volume
• Density functional theory of inhomogeneous liquids. IV. Squared-gradient approximation and classical nucleation theory
• Minimum free-energy path of homogenous nucleation from the phase-field equation