The nucleation of vapour bubbles in stretched or overheated (metastable) liquids is a complex phenomenon with a wide spectrum of applications. Several models, with different levels of detail, have been proposed to predict the key features of bubble dynamics from bubble formation up to its growth, transport and deformation. Most of them focus separately on a few of these aspects.
Heterogeneous nucleation is the most effective mechanism for the inception of phase transformation. Solid walls and impurities act as a catalyst for the formation of a new thermodynamic phase by reducing the activation energy required for a phase change, hence enhancing nucleation. The formation of vapour bubbles close to solid, ideally flat, walls is addressed here by exploiting a mesoscale description that couples diffuse interface modelling of the two-phase vapour-liquid system with fluctuating hydrodynamics, extending previous work by the authors on homogeneous nucleation.
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