Analysis of a forced laminar film condensation including finite longitudinal heat conduction effects

Abstract

We study in this paper, using asymptotic techniques, the laminar film condensation process of a forced flow characterized by saturated vapor in contact with one lateral surface of a thin plate. The other lateral surface of the wall is assumed to have an uniform temperature T-0 lower than the saturated vapor temperature, T-s, then generating a thin flow of condensate. The influence of both longitudinal and transverse heat conduction in the plate on the thickness evolution of the condensate, has been evaluated. The momentum and energy balance equations are reduced to a system of partial elliptic differential equations with four parameters. We present asymptotic formulae for the temperature, condensed film thickness and Nusselt number distributions, for all possible values of the nondimensional conjugated heat transfer parameter Br.