Abstract
Condensation of vapor on solid inherently accompanies generation of liquid drops on the solid surface. However, these drops prevent the solid surface from directly contacting the saturated vapor, thus causing thermal resistance. This work investigates a novel mechanism for enhancing the condensation process, in which the condensed drops are rapidly removed from a solid surface by imposing vibration on them. In the experiments, a water drop pendant from a solid surface is vibrated at a fixed frequency while increasing the vibration amplitude. Upon repeating the experiments using various frequencies, it is revealed that there exist resonant frequencies at which the minimum vibration amplitudes inducing a fall-off of the pendant drops are remarkably less than those at neighboring frequencies. These frequencies are supposed to correspond to the resonant frequencies for different modes of drop shape oscillations. They are compared with the resonant frequencies predicted by relatively simple analyses, and the factors causing discrepancy between then are discussed.
