A Predictive Model for the Initial Droplet Size and Velocity Distributions in Sprays and Comparison with Experiments

The distribution of sizes and velocities of droplets initially formed in sprays is an important piece of information needed in the spray modelling, because it defines the initial condition of the spray droplets in the predictive calculations of the downstream two‐phase flow fields. A predictive model for the initial droplet size and velocity distributions in sprays is formulated in this study. The present model incorporates both the deterministic and the stochastic aspect of spray formation process. The deterministic aspect takes into account of the unstable wave motion before the liquid bulk breakup through the linear and nonlinear instability analysis, which provides information for the liquid bulk breakup length, the mass‐mean diameter and a prior distribution for the droplet sizes corresponding to the unstable wave growth of various wavelengths. The stochastic aspect deals with the final stage of droplet formation after the liquid bulk breakup by statistical means through the maximum entropy principle based on Bayesian entropy. The two sub‐models are coupled together by the various source terms signifying the liquid‐gas interaction, the mass mean diameter and the prior distribution based on the instability analysis. The initial droplet size and velocity distributions are measured experimentally by phase‐Doppler interferometry for sprays generated by a planar research nozzle and a practical gas turbine airblast nozzle. For the two nozzles, the liquid bulk sheet is formed before its breakup in a coflowing air stream. It is found that the model predictions are in satisfactory agreement with the experimental data for all the cases measured. Hence the present model may be applied to a variety of practical sprays to specify the initial conditions for the spray droplets formed in practical spray systems.     

Structure of Liquid‐Sheet Sprays

Spray characteristics and their spatial distribution have been investigated experimentally for sprays generated by the breakup of thin liquid sheets in co‐flowing air streams. The spray characteristics such as droplet mean and fluctuation velocity and Sauter mean diameter have been measured by using phase Doppler anemometry under various liquid and air flow conditions at the nozzle exit. The results show that at a given spray cross section the droplet axial mean velocity has a maximum value at the spray center, and decreases towards the edge of the spray; whereas the Sauter mean diameter has a minimum value at the center and increases monotonically towards the spray periphery. Data analysis indicates that sufficiently downstream of the nozzle exit the droplet mean velocity attains a jet‐like self‐similar distribution in the transverse direction, and such universal distribution is also observed for the turbulent fluctuation velocity and turbulent intensity, although it is achieved further downstream compared to the mean velocity profile. The Sauter mean diameter at the spray center has a complex variation in the downstream direction due to secondary atomization at high air velocity near the nozzle exit and droplet entrainment, migration and possible coalescence farther downstream.     

Effects of fine fuel droplets on a laminar flame stabilized in a partially prevaporized spray stream

A partially prevaporized spray burner was developed to investigate the interaction between fuel droplets and a flame. Monodispersed partially prevaporized ethanol sprays with narrow diameter distribution were generated by the condensation method using rapid pressure reduction of a saturated ethanol vapor–air mixture. A tilted flat flame was stabilized at the nozzle exit using a hot wire. Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) was applied to measurements of the droplet velocity; the laminar burning velocity was obtained from gas velocity derived from the droplet velocity. Observations were made of flames in partially prevaporized spray streams with mean droplet diameters of 7 μm and the liquid equivalence ratios of 0.2; the total equivalence ratio was varied. In all cases, a sharp vaporization plane was observed in front of the blue flame. Flame oscillation was observed on the fuel-rich side. At strain rates under 50 s⁻¹, the change in the burning velocity with the strain rate is small in fuel-lean spray streams. In spray streams of 0.7 and 0.8 in the total equivalence ratio, burning velocity increases with strain rates of greater than 50 s⁻¹. However, in spray streams with 0.9 and 1.0 in the total equivalence ratio, burning velocity decreases as the strain rate increases. At strain rates greater than 80 s⁻¹, burning velocity decreases with an increased gas equivalence ratio. The effect of mean droplet diameter, and the entry length of droplets into a flame on the laminar burning velocity, were also investigated to interpret the effect of the strain rate on the laminar burning velocity of partially prevaporized sprays.     

气泡雾化喷嘴喷雾平均直径在下游流场中的分布

文利用激光衍射粒度仪对气泡雾化喷嘴下游流场进行了实验研究,主要分析了雾化颗粒直径随径向和轴向距离变化的趋势．由于喷嘴出口处气液两相流型和颗粒自身重量的影响,液雾颗粒沿径向呈现非轴对称分布;而液雾颗粒直径随着轴向距离的增加呈现先减小、后增大的趋势,颗粒直径的减小是大量气泡爆炸的结果,而后的增加则是由于颗粒之间的相互粘结造成的。     

Combustion of partially premixed spray jets

Gas turbines, liquid rocket motors, and oil-fired furnaces utilize the spray combustion of continuously injected liquid fuels. In most cases, the liquid spray is mixed with an oxidizer prior to combustion, and further oxidizer is supplied from the outside of the spray to complete diffusion combustion. This rich premixed spray is called “partially premixed spray.” Partially premixed sprays have not been studied systematically although they are of practical importance. In the present study, the burning behavior of partially premixed sprays was experimentally studied with a newly developed spray burner. A fuel spray and an oxidizer, diluted with nitrogen, was injected into the air. The overall equivalence ratio of the spray jet was set larger than unity to establish partially premixed spray combustion. In the present burner, the mean droplet diameter of the atomized liquid fuel could be varied without varying the overall equivalence ratio of the spray jet. Two combustion modes with and without an internal flame were observed. As the mean droplet diameter was increased or the overall equivalence ratio of the spray jet was decreased, the transition from spray combustion only with an external group flame to that with the internal premixed flame occurred. The results suggest that the internal flame was supported by flammable mixture through the vaporization of fine droplets, and the passage of droplet clusters deformed the internal flame and caused internal flame oscillation. The existence of the internal premixed flame enhanced the vaporization of droplets in the post-premixed-flame zone within the external diffusion flame.     

Numerical investigation of the effects of polydisperse water sprays on extinction conditions of counterflow methane non-premixed flames

Water, sprayed in the form of tiny droplets, has emerged as a potential fire suppressant after the halon compounds such as trifluorobromomethane (CF₃Br, Halon 1301) were banned by the Montreal protocol. The size distribution of the water droplet plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of the water spray in fire suppression. A numerical investigation of the influence of size distribution of a polydisperse water spray on extinction of counterflow diffusion flames is presented in this paper. This study uses laminar finite rate model with reduced CHEMKIN chemistry for numerical simulations. The discrete phase, namely the water spray, is simulated using Lagrangian Discrete Phase Modelling approach. In this work, the polydispersity of water spray is taken into account in the numerical simulation by a suitable Rosin–Rammler distribution. Results obtained from numerical simulation are validated with the experimental results reported in the literature. This study demonstrates that the representation of the polydisperse spray by a monodisperse spray (with droplet diameter same as the SMD of the polydisperse spray) in numerical simulations is not always justified and it leads to deviation from the experimental results. The effects of number mean diameter and spread parameter on the efficacy of flame suppression are investigated for polydisperse sprays. A comprehensive comparison is done between the effectiveness of monodisperse and polydisperse water sprays. An optimum droplet diameter is obtained for monodisperse sprays for which the effectiveness of the spray is maximum. The effects of evaporation Damköhler number and Stokes number of water droplets on flame suppression have also been explained.     

A GENERAL HEAT TRANSFER CORRELATION FOR IMPACTING WATER SPRAYS ON HIGH-TEMPERATURE SURFACES

A method for the general correlation of heat transfer effectiveness for sprays impacting vertically downward on a high-temperature surface has been developed. A dimensional analysis showed that the mass velocity of the spray can be substituted for the droplet velocity in the droplet Reynolds and Weber numbers, greatly improving the correlation with the heat flux data in the film boiling regime. The spray Reynolds number, defined as Re s = Gd/ w , and spray Weber number, We s = G 2 d/ 𝜌 σ , were shown to correlate data from many authors covering a wide range of spray parameters. This correlation supports the results of previous parametric experiments, and is analogous to correlations developed for the critical heat flux of sprays and circular jets. Dependence of the heat transfer performance on spray mass flux and droplet diameter represents the influence of the overall heat transfer capacity of the spray as well as the contribution of droplet interactions. The Leidenfrost temperature of the spray was also shown to be dependent on the spray Weber number.     

Comparison of techniques for non-intrusive fuel drop size measurements in a subscale gas turbine combustor

In aviation gas turbine combustors, many factors, such as the degree and extent of fuel/air mixing, and fuel vaporization achieved prior to combustion, influence the formation of pollutants. To assist in analyzing the extent of fuel/air mixing, flow visualization techniques have been used to interrogate the fuel distributions during subcomponent tests of lean-burning fuel injectors. Combustor pressures (up to 14 bar) and air inlet temperatures (up to 680K) were typical of actual gas turbine engine operating conditions. Discrimination between liquid and vapor phases of the fuel was accomplished by comparing planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) images, elastically-scattered light images, and phase/Doppler interferometer measurements. Estimates of Sauter mean diameters are made by ratioing PLIF and Mie scattered intensities for various sprays, and factors affecting the accuracy of these estimates are discussed. Mie calculations of absorption coefficients indicate that the droplet fluorescence intensities are proportional to their surface areas, instead of their volumes, due to the high absorbance of the liquid fuel for the selected excitation wavelengths.     

Phase Doppler Anemometer for Measurements of Deterministic Spray Unsteadiness

A method and analysis was developed to quantify the amplitude of deterministic spray unsteadiness based on Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA), which sampled time‐dependent droplet velocity and size measurements, in order to determine the fluctuations of droplet data rate and number density, which are quantities relevant to fluctuations of droplet concentration. The data processing method of the PDA measurements was assessed in a pulsed spray at a frequency of 20 Hz injected in a swirl‐stabilised burner. Comparisons between quantities relevant to droplet concentration fluctuations, measured by PDA and a light scattering technique, quantified the deterministic spray unsteadiness and agreed to within 15%. The developed PDA approach was applied in the swirl‐stabilised burner to measure the amplitude of deterministic spray unsteadiness of an otherwise steady spray, which was caused by the instability of the atomisation process. The intensity of deterministic fluctuations of droplet data rate and number density, occurring at a frequency range around 600 Hz due to the atomisation process, was quantified to 15% of the corresponding mean value and this spray unsteadiness generated fluctuations on the air and droplet velocity fields. The deterministic spray unsteadiness could survive up to the end of the recirculation zone of the air flow at the burner exit and, therefore, could influence flame stability.     

气液两相流速度及粒径分布激光干涉测量方法的研究

为了实现对气液两相流的粒子粒径、空间分布及其速度测量。对激光干涉气液两相流测量技术（ILIDS）进行了深入研究,该技术是一种应州于气液两相流测量的新技术,其主要优点是不干扰流场和颗粒粒径、位置测量精度高。基于该技术所开发的图像自动处理方法可以利用普通粒子成像测量技术系统拍摄气液两相流的激光散射干涉图像。并利用图像卷积定位、傅里叶变换频率分析及其图像互相关测速等图像处理手段从干涉图像中自动提取粒子的位置、直径和速度信息。为了验证该方法的测量精度,对喷嘴生成的气水两相流进行了测量实验,得到了喷嘴出口处不同区域的粒径、速度矢量的空间分布,并将测得的速度矢量与用粒子成像测量技术方法测得的结果进行对比,证明两种方法测量的平均速度差别仅为0．38％。     

Experimental Investigations of the Binary Interaction of Polydisperse Sprays

Experimental investigations of the interaction of two polydisperse semi-hollow cone sprays are presented. The process, although of considerable significance for the chemical industry and applications like flue gas cleaning, has not been well-covered in the existing literature. This may be due to difficulties in getting general results from experiments involving particular geometries, like conical sprays, with fixed spray angle and geometrical arrangement of the nozzles. The present work develops a representation of the effects of the spray interaction on the spray drops in the resulting two-phase flow. The measurement technique used is phase-Doppler anemometry (PDA), which provides information about the size and two velocity components of the drops at each measurement position in the sprays. A factorial design of the experiments allows the influence of the intersection angle and the liquid flowrate of the sprays on an integral mean drop size in a spray cross section to be quantified. For varying values of these parameters, the downstream evolution of the interacting sprays is quantified in terms of the smoothness of profiles of the number-mean drop size. The collisional interaction of the spray drops is identified as the reason for the observed increase of the mean drop size caused by the spray interaction.     

Monodisperse Sprays for Various Purposes — Their production and characteristics

The production of liquid sprays represents a key technology for a wide range of industrial proceses. Most applications currently use pressure or air-assisted atomization, resulting in the production of polydisperese sprays. Recent advances in experimental and numerical techniques for investigating liquid spraying processes, however, have enabled a closer examination of parameter optimization, leading to the conclusion that in may cases, a much narrower size distribution, or even a monodisperse spray, may exhibit many advantages. Currently monodisperse droplet generators, or drop-on-demand generators, do not meet this challenge of producing monodisperse sprays, primarily owing to the very low volume flow rate of liquid which is atomized. In the present work, a monodisperse sprya generator is introduced, which overcomes this difficulty for many applications.     

Experimental heat transfer study of beef carcasses chilled by mist sprays

Experimental studies were conducted on the chilling of beef carcasses by mist sprays to investigate the effect spray droplet size and Weber number have on the heat transfer and carcass weight loss during spray chilling. Experiments were conducted on 16 beef carcass halves. Half were conventionally chilled by the circulating air in the meat chiller, while the others were chilled by water mist. Tests reveal that spray heat transfer increases with the increase in the spray mass flux. Beef carcasses chilled by mist spray also show a reduction in carcass weight loss with the increase in the spray Weber number.     

Design and Performance of an Ultrasonic Atomization System for experimental combustion applications

Although common atomizing systems efficiently produce sprays, a range of droplet sizes is generally obtained and the distribution is often difficult to control in terms of liquid or gaseous flow rates. It is shown that an alternative system, based on ultrasonic surface instabilities, is well suited for experimental applications where all parameters have to be controlled. Technological aspects of ultrasonic atomization are described and the droplet spray produced by an ultrasonic atomizer is characterized experimentally.     

Topological transitions of Jet A-1 lean azimuthal flames (LEAF)

Prior studies about liquid fuel combustion in a vitiated air environment have shown increased combustion efficiency with reduced NOx, CO, and soot emissions. The concept of lean azimuthal flame (LEAF), which can be associated to the latter combustion mode, is based on opposed injections of air and liquid fuel sprays in an axisymmetric chamber with a central outlet, which can result in a highly turbulent toroidal reaction zone. The mixture of fresh air and hot combustion products of each spray provides a vitiated cross-flow configuration to the next spray distributed along the chamber circumference, leading to ignition and sequential combustion of the sprays by the others. The present paper deals with a LEAF combustor with air-assisted spray atomization, which has not been investigated so far. The combustor is fueled with Jet A-1 and operated from 15 to 25 kW with variations in the atomization-air to liquid mass flow ratio (ALR). This study focuses on the flame topology transitions as a function of atomizer ALR. Experimental results based on flame chemiluminescence and OH planar laser-induced fluorescence show two flame topologies: tubular and LEAF topology for ratio of 2 and 4, respectively (denoted ALR2 and ALR4). The spray Mie scattering indicates a significant presence of unburnt droplets for ALR2, whereas quick evaporation is observed for ALR4 cases. In this paper, we propose and validate a basic model based on the spray droplet size distribution, and the evaporation and convection timescales, which are the prominent factors governing the flame topology. Indeed, for ALR2, the evaporation timescale is longer than the convective timescale, which causes incomplete spray evaporation and insufficient vitiated environment, leading to a tubular flame topology and preventing a LEAF to develop. In contrast, for ALR4, the spray evaporation timescales are smaller than the convective timescales, which aids the LEAF topology.     

Interaction of Annular Air Jet with a Non-Evaporating Liquid Spray

The effects of a concentric annular air jet on the structure of a liquid spray have been examined under isothermal conditions using Phase Doppler interferometry, and flow visualization techniques. Local measurements of drop size, velocity, volume flux, and number density have been made simultaneously and non-intrusively. The results show that the initial spray cone widens substantially with increasing air flow while the overall spray envelope remains essentially the same. The air jet creates a narrow high mass flux region of small droplets in the core of the spray, surrounded by a nearly uniform flux region extending almost to the boundary of the spray. Line averaged mean diameters are found to be slightly smaller, indicating that the annular air jet plays a role improving the atomization process as well.     

Flow-field measurements of liquid and gaseous phases in the ultra-dense region of diesel sprays

The velocities of both the liquid and the gaseous phases in a diesel spray are determined for the first time simultaneously via laser flow tagging (LFT). The experimental setup and uncertainties introduced by seeding particles in the gas phase are greatly reduced by using phosphorescent tracer molecules, i.e. acetone and biacetyl, for the gaseous phase. In addition, simultaneous droplet velocimetry is achieved by doping the liquid fuel with a lanthanide–chelate complex.The relative velocity of gas and liquid phases can be determined from the data on the spray axis close to the nozzle for the first time. This is an important quantity for modeling droplet break-up and evaporation in ultra-dense sprays.PACS 42.62.-b; 47.61.Jd     

Onset of detonation in polydispersed fuel–air mixtures

Investigations of detonation onset in pulverized fuel–air mixtures were carried out. Combustion and detonation processes in sprays differ greatly from that in homogeneous mixtures, because not only chemical reactions, but physical processes of combustible mixture formation take place within the combustion zone (droplets atomization and evaporation). The polydispersed character of mixture and non-uniformity of droplet spatial distribution strongly affects spray combustion and detonation onset. The present paper contains the results of theoretical and experimental investigations of detonation onset peculiarities in polydispersed non-uniform hydrocarbon–air mixtures.     

Effect of non-zero relative velocity on the flame speed of two-phase laminar flames

A numerical study of one-dimensional n-heptane/air spray flames is presented. The objective is to evaluate the flame propagation speed in the case where droplets evaporate inside the reaction zone with possibly non-zero relative velocity. A Direct Numerical Simulation approach for the gaseous phase is coupled to a discrete particle Lagrangian formalism for the dispersed phase. A global two-step n-heptane/air chemical mechanism is used. The effects of initial droplet diameter, overall equivalence ratio, liquid loading and relative velocity between gaseous and liquid phases on the laminar spray flame speed and structure are studied. For lean premixed cases, it is found that the laminar flame speed decreases with increasing initial droplet diameter and relative velocity. On the contrary, rich premixed cases show a range of diameters for which the flame speed is enhanced compared to the corresponding purely gaseous flame. Finally, spray flames controlled by evaporation always have lower flame speeds. To highlight the controlling parameters of spray flame speed, approximate analytical expressions are proposed, which give the correct trends of the spray flame propagation speed behavior for both lean and rich mixtures.