Slow evaporation and condensation on a spherical droplet in the presence of a noncondensable gas

Abstract

A spherical droplet is placed in a binary mixture composed of the vapor of the droplet and another gas which neither evaporates nor condenses (a noncondensable gas). The mixture is in an equilibrium state at rest at infinity. A slow steady flow of the vapor caused by weak evaporation or condensation, under the influence of the noncondensable gas, is investigated on the basis of a linearized model Boltzmann equation. Numerical analyses by means of a finite-difference method are carried out for a wide range of the Knudsen number (i.e., from a large to small droplet compared to the molecular mean free path). The numerical results, together with analytical solutions for small and large Knudsen numbers, clarify the behavior the mixture, i.e., the mass- and heat-flow rates from or onto the droplet as well as spatial distributions of the macroscopic quantities, in the entire range of gas rarefaction. The solution for the steady heat transfer problem between a solid sphere and a binary gas mixture is also obtained as a byproduct.