Measurement of the temperature field downstream of simulated leading-edge film-cooling holes

Experiments to measure the temperature field downstream of simulated leading-edge-region film-cooling holes were performed in an 11 m/s wind tunnel flow. Heated air was passed to a hollow 140 mm diameter cylinder in which three 10.5 mm diameter, spanwise-inclined, film-cooling holes had been machined. A fine nylon mesh, coated with encapsulated thermochromic liquid crystals, was used to measure temperature contours downstream of the holes by moving the mesh relative to the holes and adjusting the power to the air heater. The measurements indicate the extent of the lateral spreading of the coolant gas and show the influence of hole location and coolant mass flow rate on film trajectory and spreading. Received: 5 February 1998/ Accepted: 22 October 1998     

Evaporation of thin liquid droplets on heated surfaces

We carry out combined experimental and theoretical studies of liquid droplet evaporation on heated surfaces in a closed container filled with saturated vapor. The droplets are deposited on an electrically heated thin stainless steel foil. The evolution of droplet shapes is studied by optical methods simultaneously with high-resolution foil temperature measurements using thermochromic liquid crystals. A mathematical model is developed based on the assumptions that the droplet surface has uniform mean curvature and the contact line is pinned during evaporation. Both the dynamics of liquid–vapor interface and the temperature profiles at the foil are shown to be in good agreement with the experimental data.     

Numerical modeling and experimental measurements of water spray impact and transport over a cylinder

This study compares experimental measurements and numerical simulations of liquid droplets over heated (to a near surface temperature of 423 K) and unheated cylinders. The numerical model is based on an unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) formulation using a stochastic separated flow (SSF) approach for the droplets that includes submodels for droplet dispersion, heat and mass transfer, and impact on a solid surface. The details of the droplet impact model are presented and the model is used to simulate water spray impingement on a cylinder. Computational results are compared with experimental measurements using phase Doppler interferometry (PDI). Overall, good agreement is observed between predictions and experimental measurements of droplet mean size and velocity downstream of the cylinder.     

An icing physics study by using lifetime-based molecular tagging thermometry technique

An experimental investigation was conducted to quantify the unsteady heat transfer and phase changing process within small icing water droplets in order to elucidate underlying physics to improve our understanding of the important micro-physical process of icing phenomena. A novel, lifetime-based molecular tagging thermometry (MTT) technique was developed and implemented to achieve temporally-and-spatially resolved temperature distribution measurements to reveal the time evolution of the unsteady heat transfer and dynamic phase changing process within micro-sized water droplets in the course of icing process. It was found that, after a water droplet impinged onto a frozen cold surface, the liquid water at the bottom of the droplet would be frozen and turned to solid ice rapidly, while the upper portion of the droplet was still in liquid state. As the time goes by, the interface between the liquid phase water and solid phase ice was found to move upward continuously with more and more liquid water within the droplet turned to solid ice. Interestingly, the averaged temperature of the remaining liquid water within the small icing droplet was found to increase, rather than decrease, continuously in the course of icing process. The temperature increase of the remaining liquid water is believed to be due to the heat release of the latent heat during solidification process. The volume expansion of the water droplet during the icing process was found to be mainly upward to cause droplet height growth rather than radial to enlarge the contact area of the droplet on the test plate. As a result, the spherical-cap-shaped water droplet was found to turn to a prolate-spheroid-shaped ice crystal with cusp-like top at the end of the icing process. The required freezing time for the water droplets to turn to ice crystals completely was found to depend on the surface temperature of the test plate strongly, which would decrease exponentially as the surface temperature of the frozen cold test plate decreases.     

Influence of humidity on the convective heat transfer from small cylinders

 The convective heat transfer from a cylinder to a humid air stream flowing normal to the cylinder was investigated experimentally at atmospheric pressure over a range of variables which is relevant to the use of hot‐wire anemometry: air temperatures between 30 °C and 70 °C and velocities between 12 and 37 m/s. For molar fractions of water vapour up to 0.27, the heat transfer increased with increasing humidity. The ratio of heat transfer rates in humid air and dry air is a unique function of the molar fraction of water vapour, independent of the air temperature and flow velocity. Received: 28 November 1996/Accepted: 5 July 1997     

On the calculation of wall temperatures in the post dryout heat transfer region

A non-equilibrium post dryout heat transfer model for calculating the wall temperature distribution in vertical upflows is presented in this study. The model is based upon the three path heat transfer formulation developed by MIT researchers (Laverty & Rohsenow 1964, Forslund & Rohsenow 1968, Hynek et al. 1969 and Plummer et al. 1974) that involves heat transfer from wall to vapor, from wall to droplets in contact with the wall and from vapor to liquid droplets in the vapor core. Downstream gradients for the bulk vapor temperature, vapor quality, droplet size and vapor velocities are identical to those used by Hynek et al. (1969) and Plummer et al. (1974). Conditions at the dryout location are calculated using a modified version of a technique developed by Hynek et al. (1969).A procedure for determining an average droplet diameter based on a size distribution is introduced. Migration of droplets through the boundary layer and droplet deposition flux are predicted with the model of Gani? & Rohsenow (1979). Heat transfer from the wall to the impinging liquid droplets is calculated with a correlation by Holman & McGinnis (1969). Mechanisms contributing to wall to droplet heat transfer are identified as (a) droplet-wall contact, (b) intensive droplet evaporation inside the boundary layer, and (c) destruction of the boundary layer due to droplet migration to, and rebound from, the hot surface. The significance of the average droplet size and size distribution is demonstrated through its control over the free stream evaporation and droplet deposition rates.Predicted uniform heat flux wall temperature profiles for water, nitrogen and freon 12 are in good agreement with the data of Era et al. (1966), Bennett et al. (1967), Forslund & Rohsenow (1968), Ling et al. (1971), Groeneveld (1972) and Janssen & Kervinen (1975).     

Steady and transient liquid sphere heating in a convective gas stream

 A finite-difference scheme has been developed to solve the equations governing the laminar forced convection heat transfer around and inside a spherical fluid droplet moving steadily in another immiscible fluid for both steady and transient thermal conditions. For large values of the external flow Reynolds number (Re), results not available in the literature have been obtained for circulating droplets at intermediate and high interior-to-exterior viscosity ratios (μ^*). Detailed results over a wide range of viscosity ratio (μ^*) and for 200≤Re≤1000 are presented for the temperature profiles outside and inside the sphere, Nusselt number, the time required to attain a uniform surface temperature and the time required to reach the steady-state temperature. Results show that convective heating is dependent on the external flow Reynolds number (Re) and the interior-to-exterior viscosity ratio (μ^*) where increasing Re or decreasing μ^* result in increasing heat transfer rate convected to the liquid sphere. Received on 1 March 1999     

An experimental and numerical study into turbulent condensing steam jets in air

 Temperatures, velocities, and droplet sizes are measured in turbulent condensing steam jets produced by a facial sauna, for varying nozzle diameters and varying initial velocities (Re=3,600–9,200). The release of latent heat due to droplet condensation causes the temperature in the two-phase jet to be significantly higher than in a single-phase jet. At some distance from the nozzle, droplets reach a maximum size and start to evaporate again, which results in a change in sign of latent heat release. The distance of maximum size is determined from droplet size measurements. The experimental results are compared with semi-analytical expressions and with a fully coupled numerical model of the turbulent condensing steam jet. The increase in centreline temperature due to droplet condensation is successfully predicted. Received: 5 April 2000 / Accepted: 15 November 2000     

Droplet evaporation on porous and non-porous ceramic solids heated from top

 This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation, of the effect of radiation heat, on the evaporation of five droplet sizes of pure water, softly deposited on porous and non-porous ceramic solids, at temperature ranging from 75 to 250 °C. Both solids were instrumented with several surface and in-depth thermocouples, and had the same thermal properties. Results show that, the droplet evaporation time, and the surface recovery time for the porous solid were shorter than that of non-porous solid for the same droplet size under identical conditions. Also, smaller droplets were more efficient for cooling both solids. The results were compared with data for the evaporation of water droplets on similar ceramic solids heated from bottom (Abu-Zaid M; Atreya A (1994) J Heat Transfer 116: 694–701). The comparison shows that, the heat radiation has a significant effect of reducing evaporation time, recovery time, and droplet volume of influence for both solids, at the same initial surface temperature. Received on 6 December 1999 / Published online: 29 November 2001     

Secondary atomization of water and isooctane drops impinging on tilted heated surfaces

The present paper reports an experimental study aimed at characterizing the effects of heat transfer on the secondary atomization, which occurs during droplet impact on hot surfaces at conditions reproducing those occurring at fuel injection in internal combustion engines. The experiments consider single isooctane and water droplets impacting at different angles on a stainless steel surface with known roughness and encompass a range of Weber numbers from 240 to 600 and heat transfer regimes from the film-vaporization up to the Leidenfrost regime. The mechanisms of secondary breakup are inferred from the temporal evolution of the morphology of the impact imaged with a CCD camera, together with instantaneous measurements of droplet size and velocity. The combination of a technique for image processing with a phase Doppler instrument allows evaluating extended size distributions from 5.5 μm up to a few millimetres and to cover the full range of secondary droplet sizes observed at all heat transfer regimes and impaction angles. Temporal evolution of the size and velocity distributions are then determined. The experiments are reported at impact conditions at which disintegration does not occur at ambient temperature. So, any alteration observed in droplet impact behavior is thermally induced. The analysis is relevant for port fuel injection systems, where droplets injected to impact on the back surface of the valves, behave differently depending on fuel properties, particularly when the use of alcohols is considered, even as an additive to gasoline.     

A pulse-expansion wave tube for nucleation studies at high pressures

 The design and performance of a new pulse-expansion wave tube for nucleation studies at high pressures are described. The pulse-expansion wave tube is a special shock tube in which a nucleation pulse is formed at the endwall of the high pressure section. The nucleation pulse is due to reflections of the initial shock wave at a local widening situated in the low pressure section at a short distance from the diaphragm. The nucleation pulse has a duration of the order of 200 μs, while nucleation pressures that can be achieved range from 1 to 50 bar total pressure. Droplet size and droplet number density can accurately be determined by a 90°-Mie light scattering method and a light extinction method. The range of nucleation rates that can be measured is 10⁸ cm^-3 s^-1<J<10¹¹ cm^-3 s^-1. We will illustrate the functioning and possibilities of the new pulse-expansion wave tube by nucleation rate measurements in the gas-vapour mixture nitrogen/water in the temperature range 200–260 K, and in the mixture methane/n-nonane as a function of supersaturation S at various total pressures up to 40 bar and temperatures around 240 K. Received: 5 June 1996/Accepted: 9 December 1996     

Energy balance of droplets impinging onto a wall heated above the Leidenfrost temperature

This work is an experimental study aiming at characterizing the heat transfers induced by the impingement of water droplets (diameter 80–180 μm) on a thin nickel plate heated by electromagnetic induction. The temperature of the rear face of the nickel sample is measured by means of an infrared camera and the heat removed from the wall due to the presence of the droplets is estimated using a semi-analytical inverse heat conduction model. In parallel, the temperature of the droplets is measured using the two-color Laser-Induced Fluorescence thermometry (2cLIF) which has been extended to imagery for the purpose of these experiments. The measurements of the variation in the droplet temperature occurring during an impact allow determining the sensible heat removed by the liquid. Measurements are performed at wall conditions well above the Leidenfrost temperature. Different values of the Weber numbers corresponding to the bouncing and splashing regimes are tested. Comparisons between the heat flux removed from the wall and the sensible heat gained by the liquid allows estimating the heat flux related to liquid evaporation. Results reveal that the respective level of the droplet sensible heat and the heat lost due to liquid vaporization can vary significantly with the droplet sizes and the Weber number.     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Interactions Between a Reacting Jet and Evaporating Droplets

Large-eddy simulation of a turbulent reactive jet with and without evaporating droplets is performed to investigate the interactions among turbulence, combustion, heat transfer and evaporation. A hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian approach is used for the gas–liquid flow system. Arrhenius-type finite-rate chemistry is employed for the chemical reaction. To capture the highly local interactions, dynamic procedures are used for all the subgrid-scale models, except that the filtered reaction rate is modelled by a scale similarity model. Various representative cases with different initial droplet sizes (St ₀) and mass loading ratios (MLR) have been simulated, along with a case without droplets. It is found that compared with the bigger, slow responding droplets (St ₀ = 16), smaller droplets (St ₀ = 1) are more efficient in suppressing combustion due to their preferential concentration in the reaction zones. The peak temperature and intensity of temperature fluctuations are found to be reduced in all the droplet cases, to a varying extent depending on the droplet properties. Detailed analysis on the contributions of respective terms in a transport equation for grid-scale kinetic energy (GSKE) shows that the droplet evaporation effect on GSKE is small, while the droplet momentum effect depends on St ₀. When the MLR is sufficiently high, the bigger (St ₀ = 16) droplets can have profound influence on GSKE, and consequently on the formation and evolution of large-scale flow structures. On the other hand, the turbulence level is found to be lower in the droplet cases than in the pure flame case, due to the dissipative droplet dynamic effect.     

Experimental study on effect of relative humidity on heat transfer of an evaporating water droplet in air flow

Dispersed water droplets are often seen in environmental air flows in rain, cloud, mist, sea spray and so on. It is therefore of great importance to precisely estimate heat transfer between water droplets and atmospheric air in developing a reliable climate model. The purpose of this study is to fabricate the measurement system for the temperature of a small water droplet in air flow under the controlled relative humidity condition and to investigate the effect of relative humidity on heat transfer across the surface of an evaporating water droplet in air flow. The results show that the droplet temperature decreases in the low-relative-humidity condition, whereas it increases in the high-relative-humidity condition. Nusselt number on the droplet surface is not affected by the relative humidity.     

Experimental study of water droplet boiling on hot, non-porous surfaces

In this paper, the results of a series of experimental tests on single- and multi-droplet boiling systems are presented and discussed. The main objectives of the present study are: a) to investigate experimentally the effect of the boiling onset on the evaporation rate of water droplets; b) to measure the evolution of the solid surface temperature during evaporation; c) to examine the possibility of improving spray cooling efficiencies. The behavior of small water droplets (from 10 to 50 μl) gently deposited on hot, non-porous surfaces is observed. The evaporation of multi-droplet arrays (50 and 100 μl) under the same conditions of the single-droplet tests is analyzed. In particular, the conditions which determine the onset of nucleate and film boiling are stressed out. In the experimental tests, the interaction of different materials with several multi-droplet systems is monitored by infrared thermography. The spray cooling efficiency is related to the solid temperature decrease as a function of the water mass flux. In the present study, the effect of varying the droplet volume and the mass flux is also analyzed and discussed. The results on the droplets evaporation time and on the solid surface transient temperature distribution are also compared with the data obtained by the same authors during the analysis of droplet evaporation in total absence of nucleate and film boiling. In order to analyze the different behavior of the evaporating droplet as a function of the solid surface thermal conductivity, evaporative transients on aluminum, stainless steel and macor (a glass-like, low-conductivity material) are considered. Received on 20 February 1998     

An experimental study of the evaporation characteristics of emulsified liquid droplets

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation, into the effect of water in diesel and kerosene emulsions, on the evaporation time of a single droplet, on hot surfaces (stainless-steel and aluminum). Experiments are performed at atmospheric pressure, and initial water volume concentrations of 10, 20, 30, and 40%. The wall temperatures ranging from 100–460 °C, to cover the entire spectrum of heat transfer characteristics from evaporation to film boiling. Results show that, qualitatively, the shapes of emulsion evaporation curves are very similar to that of pure liquids. Quantitavely, there are significant differences. The total evaporation time, for the emulsion droplets is lower than that for diesel and kerosene fuels, and decreased as water initial concentration increases, up to surface temperatures less than the critical temperature. The value of the critical surface temperature (maximum heat transfer rate), decreases as initial concentration of water increases. In the film-boiling region, the evaporation time for the emulsion droplets is higher than for diesel and kerosene droplets, at identical conditions.List of Symbols h_fg latent heat of vaporization, KJ/kg - m mass of the droplet, gm - T_b boiling temperature, °C - T_c critical temperature, °C - T_L Leidenfrost temperature, °C - T_s initial surface temperature of the hot surface, °C     

Drag coefficients of spherical liquid droplets Part 2: Turbulent gaseous fields

The drag of non-evaporating, spherical, liquid droplets was measured in turbulent flow fields at parametric ranges relevant to spray combustion, characterized by the droplet Reynolds number, and the intensity and spatial scales of turbulence. The experimental apparatus comprised a wind-tunnel and a piezo-electric droplet generator. The procedure was to inject water droplets of uniform size co-currently and continuously with vertical turbulent air flows while droplet velocity was measured at different elevations using laser-Doppler velocimetry. Turbulence was characterized using hot-wire anemometry prior to droplet injection. Drag coefficients were calculated using these main measurements and the law of conservation of mechanical energy. Reynolds numbers were investigated in the range 10–100, in terms of the equivalent spherical diameter of a droplet, and the mean relative speed between the ambient gaseous field and the droplets. Weber numbers were much less than unity so droplets were effectively spherical. Relative intensities of turbulence were investigated in the range 20–65 percent, in terms of the mean relative speed. Spatial scales of turbulence were large in comparison to the droplets; the ratio between the spatial integral scale and the droplet diameter was in the range 11–38, and the Kolmogorov scale was comparable in size or smaller than the droplet diameter. Experimental data showed that the drag in turbulent fields under these conditions is not significantly different than that of solid spheres in a quiescent field at the same Reynolds number.The financial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Manufacturing Research Corporation of Ontario is gratefully acknowledged.     

Radar imaging of water surface flow fields

 We describe the capabilities of coherent high resolution radar to observe remotely the effects of an upwelling subsurface flow on the water surface. This observation is possible because the radar radiation backscatters very strongly from surface features with dimensions similar to its wavelength, in this case X-band at 0.03 m. This technique provides imaging capability with relatively high spatial resolution (∼0.3 m) and fast time sampling (∼0.006 s) over a large surface area. The processed data reveal both the line-of-sight velocity spectrum of moving water surface features, and their water surface radar backscatter cross-section. We believe that the surface features are generated by subsurface vortices oriented normal to the surface. The vortices are advected with the bulk flow of the jet. Our radar observations of the down-stream flow from a submerged waterjet that is directed parallel to the surface are consistent with those previously measured by laser velocimetry. Received: 25 February 1994/Accepted: 16 May 1996     

Simultaneous velocity and scalar measurements in premixed recirculating flames

 The use of a laser-Doppler velocimeter has been extended to the analysis of turbulent heat transfer in a strongly sheared disc-stabilised propane-air flame through its combination with either laser Rayleigh scattering or digitally-compensated fine-wire thermocouples. The laser velocimeter was based on a conventional forward scattering system from the green light of a 5W Argon-Ion laser, while the Rayleigh signals used the blue line of the same laser. The procedure for the numeric compensation of the thermocouple signals included analysis of the effect of velocity and temperature on the time constant of the thermocouple and was optimised to allow combined velocity–temperature samples acquired by a purpose-built digital interference with a frequency up to 2000 Hz, without deterioration of the thermocouple by particle accretion. The maximum effective data rate for the combined Rayleigh/LDV system is shown to be around 130 Hz, which corresponds to a data rate of valid Doppler signals around 400 Hz and statistics based on more than 15 000 measurements is made possible. The results obtained with the two systems agree qualitatively, although the use of thermocouples attenuates the measured velocity-temperature correlations. The results are used to assess the extent to which turbulent mixing in flames is altered by the accompanying heat release and quantify the processes of non-gradient diffusion in a strongly recirculating premixed flame. Received: 15 November 1996/Accepted: 2 September 1997