Simulations investigating droplet diameter-charge models, for predicting electrostatically atomized dielectric liquid spray chracteristics
- Research Team
- John Shrimpton
- Investigators
- Gabriel Amine-Eddine
Experimental vs computational comparison of an electrostatically atomized spray plume. In the computational snapshot, droplets are indicated by coloured vectors according to their diameter. Droplet recirculation occurs due to attraction with atomizer body
Liquid sprays are atomized using electrostatic methods in many scienti fic, industrial and engineering applications. Due to jet and droplet breakup mechanisms, these spray plumes contain a range of drop diameters with a range of droplet charges. As a result of space charge repulsion forces between droplets, a wide range of inertial characteristics can be observed. Using an transient charged spray CFD code we have performed simulations to investigate charge-diameter relationship models for predicting the dynamics of poly-disperse and electrostatically charged hydrocarbon sprays.
A numerical procedure has been developed to allow for easy simulation and modelling of electrostatically atomised liquid sprays.
Currently work is underway, to extend the methodology developed in this study towards high-pressure sprays, where secondary atomization plays a dominant role within the spray dynamics and subsequent performance of the spray itself.
Categories
Physical Systems and Engineering simulation: CFD
Algorithms and computational methods: Finite volume, Multi-physics, Multi-scale
Programming languages and libraries: Fortran
Computational platforms: Windows
Transdisciplinary tags: Complex Systems