LAUSR

Abstract This paper investigates the energy non-conservation problem of the hybrid thermal lattice Boltzmann (LB) phase change model. To solve this problem, an infinite volume discrete scheme was introduced to deal with the diffusion term in the energy equation. After verifying this model with energy conservation law in the simulation of the one-dimensional heat conduction across the liquid-vapor interface and the liquid film evaporation on the heating wall, the improved hybrid thermal LB model was then applied in the two-dimensional simulation of bubble nucleation and boiling heat transfer. With an innovative nucleation site treatment on the wall, the complete boiling stages and the boiling curve were successfully reproduced without adding any heating fluctuations. The bubble nucleation, growth, departure, and coalescence were also well-captured. Some basic features of boiling heat transfer were clearly observed in the numerical results, including the bubble nucleation site activation, bubble departure frequency, character of bubble shape at different regime, and horizontal movement of bubble during the boiling process.