Diffusion Layer Theory for Turbulent Vapor Condensation With Noncondensable Gases

In turbulent condensation with noncondensable gas, a thin noncondensable layer accumulates and generates a diffusional resistance to condensation and sensible heat transfer. By expressing the driving potential for mass transfer as a difference in saturation temperatures and using appropriate thermodynamic relationships, here an effective “condensation” thermal conductivity is derived. With this formulation, experimental results for vertical tubes and plates demonstrate that condensation obeys the heat and mass transfer analogy, when condensation and sensible heat transfer are considered simultaneously. The sum of the condensation and sensible heat transfer coefficients becomes infinite at small gas concentrations, and approaches the sensible heat transfer coefficient at large concentrations. The “condensation” thermal conductivity is easily applied to engineering analysis, and the theory further demonstrates that condensation on large vertical surfaces is independent of the surface height.