Unsteady Laminar Film Condensation on Vertical Plate

The heat transfer associated with unsteady film condensation is analyzed for a vertical plate. The unsteady state is considered to be created by the time-dependent variation of either the uniform wall temperature or the g-force field. From the perturbation-type theoretical treatment, a set of universal variables and functions is derived which describes the unsteady behavior of the film. The universal functions are evaluated and tabulated so that the deviation of the heat transfer from the instantaneous steady-state value can be computed readily. The effect of varying the fluid properties on the unsteady heat transfer is discussed.