Evaporative mass and heat transfer from a lid-driven cavity

The fluid flow, mass transfer, and heat transfer associated with the evaporation of a liquid from a partially filled rectangular cavity have been modeled both rigorously and approximately and then evaluated numerically. A uniform tangential velocity was prescribed at the top of the cavity, and the side and bottom walls of the cavity were adiabatic. All of the numerical results were for the evaporation of water into an air ambient having various degrees of humidity. The modeling studies demonstrated that results of high accuracy for the evaporation rate and for the temperature at the gas-liquid interface could be obtained without having to solve the conservation equations for the liquid zone. The interface temperatures corresponding to convection-driven evaporation deviated only slightly from those for diffusion-driven evaporation ( i.e., no convection). Furthermore, the variation of the evaporation rate with the ambient temperature and relative humidity was found to be very similar for the convection-driven and diffusion-driven cases.