Book Description

The performance of liquid-fuelled spray combustion systems has a massive impact on the efficiency of energy production in many sectors across the globe. Realistic combustors generate sub 100-μm droplets and operate under high pressure and temperature in strong turbulence. Investigations into droplet evaporation and combustion provide fundamental knowledge and validation data regarding the behaviour of sprays, and although single droplet approaches have been a staple of energy research for many decades, there is little information regarding the effect of turbulence and initial diameter, especially micro-sized, on droplet evaporation rates. The present experimental study develops, interprets, and correlates the results of almost 500 tests performed on isolated heptane and decane droplets. Droplets in the range of 110 - 770 μm (initial diameter) were generated and suspended on small intersecting micro-fibers in a spherical fan-driven chamber and exposed to quasi-zero mean turbulence of intensity up to 1.5 m/s, temperatures ranging from 25 - 100°C, and pressures between 1 and 10 bar. The results indicate that droplet size has a major influence on evaporation rate, as measured by the temporal reduction in droplet surface area, when the environment is turbulent. Evaporation rates increased with both initial diameter and turbulence intensity at all test conditions. The effectiveness of turbulence, defined as the ability of turbulence to improve the evaporation rate over the rate of a stagnant droplet at identical ambient conditions, increased with pressure but decreased with temperature. Both the ratio of Kolmogorov length scale to droplet diameter and the theoretical molar concentration gradient of fuel at the droplet surface are found to be excellent predictors of turbulence effectiveness. Correlation approaches utilizing a turbulent Reynolds number or a vaporization Damköhler number are suggested to predict the evaporation rate of a single droplet exposed to a purely turbulent flow field.