Dropwise condensation heat transfer model considering the liquid-solid interfacial thermal resistance

Dropwise condensation is a multiscale process including droplet nucleation, growth, coalescence and departure stages. As the initial stage, droplet nucleation plays a significant role in condensation heat transfer by determining the droplet nucleation radius and nucleation density. In this work, the molecular dynamics simulation is employed to determine the liquid-solid interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) for different surface wettability. To derive the modified model, the liquid-solid ITR is incorporated into the existing heat transfer model for a single droplet, on the basis of which, the effect of liquid-solid ITR is introduced to modify the critical nucleation radius and nucleation density. The results show that the introduction of liquid-solid ITR leads to not only an increasing of critical nucleation radius but also a reduction of nucleation density. Dropwise condensation experiments are conducted and the present model predicts the experimental data we performed and those in the literature, more accurately than the existing model which neglects the liquid-solid ITR, particularly for large contact angles or large sub-cooled degrees.