Boiling crisis as the stability limit to wall heat partitioning

We propose an approach to describe the boiling crisis as the onset of instability in the local energy balance at the boiling wall. We explicitly track the microscale phenomena at the bubble scale and through them identify the condition leading to the runaway growth of surface dry-spots. The model allows us to quantify the evolution of the heat transfer mechanisms from the inception of boiling up to critical heat flux, directly from the knowledge of the surface characteristics and operating conditions. The results demonstrate qualitative and quantitative agreements with high-resolution instrumented measurements under controlled flow and surface wettability conditions.