Theory of Pool Boiling

I just never thought I'd actually find a real time use for all the various theories and derivations I've learnt up until now at college. Truly. It sounds unbelievably cynical of me, but thats the truth. Whoever thought that every theory in chemical engineering has an application in one or the other domestic chore, whether or not it has one industrially.

I was boiling water this morning( no and my culinary repertoire extends beyond just boiling water! ) and i was just watching the bubble form at the bottom of the vessel and rise up one by one and leave the surface and then the increase in the number of bubbles with the increase in flame, and i found myself thinking of thePool Boiling theory that i just learnt this past semester. you have to understand two things, that it is an achievement in itself that i can still recall that which i studied the night before the exam in such a hurry to finish portions, more than a month later and that i never, never remotely thought i'd actually find myself reaching into the depths of the repository of my brain and actually come up with not just the name of the theory but actually recall and connect the theory and its application.

Damn...somewhere along the line maybe, just maybe the teachers might, just might have done a decent job...yea right...i'd much rather take the credit due to me for having studied a theory and understood correctly than give undue credit to minions on the svce pay-roll...hrrmph...the parents money no less...well there injustices in the world much bigger in magnitude and repercussions that go untended too, this is just another blip in the working order of the world...

Ok...now i'm actually going to put to written words the extent of my understanding of the Pool Boiling theory. I do hope none of the readers of this post are chemical engineers, or if you are, that you dont remember Heat Transfer or the theory of boiling, much less pool boiling or that you dont tag me as a nerd ( theatrically: with one's right hand palm's back to thy forehead and the body twisted with thy other hand at an angle replicating a Bharathanatyam dance pose: 'Oh! how could you? a fate worse than death! Oh ! how could you? ' ).

So braving all the possibilities of being found, i charge forth as only fools do or the most valient and valorous do,

The Theory proposed that as the temperature of a liquid increased, vapour bubbles start forming. they form at the bottom of the vessel and as time goes by move to the surface and then leave the surface. he says that at the beginning, the number of vapour bubbles formed are very meager. on further heating, the number of bubbles increase and with it the rate of vapourisation by bubble formation. further on, the number of bubbles formed increase largely, giving rise to bubbles calescing to the surface of the vessel and hence adhering to one another and thus forming a layer of bubbles over the vessel surface and thus increasing reseitance to heat transfer and evaporation. at this point the amount of vapourisation taking place drastically falls. further on, the bubble layer becomes unstable and starts breking up rapidly, giving rise to its leaving the liquid surface and facilitating further formation of bubbles.

so thats the theory and i happened to find a graph on the net, so those interested can go check it out...
http://wins.engr.wisc.edu/teaching/mpfBook/FIGURES/FIG5-1.html