Vapor bubble growth under constant negative pressures

This paper aims to investigate the nature of liquids under tension while describing their multiphase behavior after vapor nuclei inception. A numerical model simulating vapor bubble dynamics under constant negative pressure is presented. The model integrates multiple physical effects, including surface tension, viscosity, heat transfer, liquid compressibility, and nonequilibrium mass flux across the interface. The results demonstrate the growth characteristics under changing ambient pressures. A transition from thermally-limited to mass-flux-limited growth occurs at pressures two orders of magnitudes below the saturation pressure, where the flux dominates the state of the bubble contents and forces a quasi-steady state. Under extreme negative pressures, substantial deviations from thermodynamic equilibrium arise, including mismatches between vapor and interface velocities. These results challenge conventional bubble growth models assuming saturated vapor contents and equal phase velocities and highlight the necessity of further experimental efforts to study post-nucleation vapor bubble dynamics.