# Walks of bubbles on a hot wire in a liquid bath

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the unusual sliding behavior of vapor bubbles on a heated wire in a liquid bath, revealing new regimes and interactions driven by Marangoni effects.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel observation of bubble sliding and clustering on a hot wire, with an interpretation based on Marangoni effects, contrasting traditional nucleate boiling theory.

## Key findings

- Bubbles slide along the heated wire instead of departing.
- Different regimes include simple sliding and clustering.
- Marangoni effects explain bubble attraction and motion.

## Abstract

When a horizontal resistive wire is heated up to the boiling point in a subcooled liquid bath, some vapor bubbles nucleate on its surface. Traditional nucleate boiling theory predicts that bubbles generated from active nucleate sites, grow up and depart from the heating surface due to buoyancy and inertia. However, we observed here a different behavior: the bubbles slide along the heated wire. In this situation, unexpected regimes are observed; from the simple sliding motion to bubble clustering. We noticed that bubbles could rapidly change their moving direction and may also interact. Finally, we propose an interpretation for both the attraction between the bubbles and the wire and for the motion of the bubbles on the wire in term of Marangoni effects.