Collective Bubble Nucleation: Scale-Separated Hydrodynamic Control of Site Stability and Vapor Removal

Abstract

Interactions between boiling bubbles are well known to influence departure dynamics and heat transfer, yet their role in governing nucleation stability, whether sites activate reproducibly, persist, and deactivate under changing thermal loads, remains poorly understood. Here we show that nucleation can be a collective process: neighboring sites at close spacings exhibit reduced variability and sustained activity, consistent with a non-local hydrodynamic shielding mechanism whereby neighboring bubbles slow the intervening flow, reducing convective heat removal and stabilizing vapor embryos. To isolate near-wall nucleation dynamics from bubble-scale vapor removal, we design surfaces comprising pairs of cavities, with intra-pair spacing tuned to the boundary layer scale and inter-pair separation to the departure diameter scale. While the former governs nucleation behavior, the latter governs collective vapor removal once sites are fully active, yielding transitions between excessive, promotive, and isolated departure regimes. Together these results establish a multiscale framework for designing robust, high-performance boiling surfaces.