A generalization of the classical Hertz-Knudsen and Schrage laws for the evaporation mass and energy fluxes at a liquid-vapor interface is derived from kinetic theory and a simple model for a velocity dependent condensation coefficient. These expressions, as well as the classical laws and simple phenomenological expressions, are then considered for the simulation of recent experiments [G. Fang and C. A. Ward, Phys. Rev. E 59, 419 (1999)]. It is shown that mean condensation and evaporation coefficients in the mass flow influence the results only if they are small compared to unity and that the expression for evaporation mass flow determines the temperature of the liquid. Moreover, it is shown that the expression for evaporation energy flow plays the leading role in determining the interface temperature jump, which can be obtained in good agreement with the experiment from the generalized kinetic theory model and phenomenological approaches, but not from the classical kinetic-theory-based Hertz-Knudsen and Schrage laws. Analytical estimates show that the interface temperature jump depends strongly on the temperature gradient of the vapor just in front of the interface, which explains why much larger temperature jumps are observed in spherical geometry and the experiments as compared to planar settings.

• Received 3 September 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.70.061605