Numerical investigation of the aerodynamic breakup of diesel droplets under various gas pressures

[EN] Abstract The present study investigates numerically the aerodynamic breakup of Diesel droplets for a wide range of ambient pressures encountered in engineering applications relevant to oil burners and internal combustion engines. The numerical model solves the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the Volume of Fluid (VOF) methodology utilized for capturing the interface between the liquid and the surrounding gas. An adaptive local grid refinement technique is used to increase the accuracy of the numerical results around the interface. The Weber (We) numbers examined are in the range of 14 to 279 which correspond to bag, multimode and sheet-thinning breakup regimes. Model results are initially compared against published experimental data and show a good agreement in predicting the drop deformation and the different breakup modes. The predicted breakup initiation times for all cases lie within the theoretical limits given by empirical correlations based on the We number. Following the model validation, the effect of density ratio on the breakup process is examined by varying the gas density (or equivalently the ambient pressure), while the We number is kept almost constant equal to 270; ambient gas pressure varies from 1 up to 146bar and the corresponding density ratios (ε) range from 700 down to 5. Results indicate that the predicted breakup mode of sheet-thinning remains unchanged for changing the density ratio. Useful information about the instantaneous drag coefficient (Cd) and surface area as functions of the selected non-dimensional time is given. It is shown that the density ratio is affecting the drag coefficient, in agreement with previous numerical studies.