Flicker noise and self-organized criticality in crisis boiling regimes

The paper describes an experimental study of thermal fluctuations during transition from bubble to film boiling of water on a wire heater and fluctuations of the shape of a superheated liquid jet discharged from a high-pressure vessel. It is found that for a heat-transfer crisis on the wire heater and for intense volume boiling of the superheated liquid jet, the fluctuation power spectrum has a low-frequency component (flicker noise) that diverges under the law $1/f$. This effect is due to nonequilibrium phase transitions in the system: the heat-transfer crisis during transition from bubble to film boiling and a flow crisis during boiling of the superheated liquid jet.