Author(s): Ismail B. Celik; Allen E. Badeau Jr.; Andrew Burt; Sherif Kandi
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Droplet formation; Shear flow; Impinging jet; Immiscible stratified liquids
Abstract: The computation of mixing in two component liquid-liquid flows using two-fluid models is difficult for large-scale industrial applications. This is due to two-fold increase in the number of differential equations to be solved with semi-empirical phase interaction terms. This task can be simplified if only the equations for the mixture are solved while the relative is prescribed empirically. However, this requires some information about the size of particles, e.g. fuel droplets in water. In this study, a set of viable transport equations are formulated for the mixture along with a droplet formation model (DFM) suitable for liquid-liquid flows. The DFM is based on local flow parameters such as turbulent Richardson numbers involving local turbulence length and velocity scales. Parallel experimental study was conducted at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) by Katz et. al. The model constants in DFM are calibrated using data from JHU in conjunction with the CFX and FLOW-3D (commercial CFD codes) calculations. In various simulated cases, the model predicted fuel droplet size distributions very similar to experimental observations.
Year: 2001