Potential well formation over a locally heated water surface

A model of the air-steam flow rising above a locally heated water surface is developed. The model is based on the system of free convection equations in the Boussinesq approximation and is implemented numerically. The adequacy of the numerical model is supported by the order of magnitude agreement between numerical predictions and experimental data, and with the analytical calculation of the slip velocity of water droplets based on Stokes drag. The temperature and velocity fields in the air-steam mixture are calculated. Based on the velocity field, a relation is proposed for calculating the potential field (potential) caused by the region of lowered dynamic pressure in the centre of the heated spot. The calculated potentials are compared with the potentials in other works using empirical approaches based on the processing of experimental data.