Library Subscription: Guest

ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-483-0

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-482-3

4th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference
April, 14–17, 2019 , Las Vegas, NV, USA

NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF HYDRODYNAMICS OF MULTIPLE DROPLET STREAM IMPINGEMENT FOR ATOMIZATION

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 1701-1704
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2019.spr.028821

Abstract

The hydrodynamics of double and triple stream droplet trains impinging upon a thin liquid film was investigated numerically and experimentally. The effect of Weber number on formation of secondary droplets from a crown rim during an atomization process was also studied for a single droplet train impingement. Numerically, ANSYS-Fluent was used to simulate the droplet impingement process using the Volume of Fluid approach coupled with the Level Set method (CLS-VOF). A structured 3D half symmetric mesh was created for simulating single, double and triple stream droplet impingement processes. The dynamic mesh adaption technique was also used in the simulations, which was capable of capturing the propagation of the droplet-induced crown with time dependent spatial and temporal resolutions. A piezo-electric droplet generator with multi-hole orifice plates was used to produce mono-dispersed droplets with the ability to control droplet properties, such as droplet diameter, velocity, Weber number and droplet stream spacing. A high-speed camera was used to capture the droplet-induced hydrodynamics and the morphology of the droplet-induced liquid film. A good agreement was reached between experimental and numerical data in terms of number of cusps, adjacent hump height and impact crater diameter. Overall, cusp formation and the influence of horizontal droplet stream spacing on adjacent hump height and crater size has been studied. In summary, results reveal that Weber number and droplet horizontal impact spacing play a significant role in impact crater characteristics including number of cusps and hump formation, and surface cooling.