Evaporation model of a single hydrocarbon fuel droplet due to ambient turbulence at intermediate Reynolds numbers

Abstract

A general evaporation model of a single liquid fuel droplet under various ambient turbulence conditions at intermediate droplet Reynolds numbers is proposed combining the current and previous experimental results. Extensive evaporation experiments of single fuel droplets are conducted at room temperature in quasi-laminar and turbulent environments at Reynolds numbers in the range of 72-333. Tested hydrocarbon fuels include by pentane, hexane, heptane, octane and decane. Flow fields, behind a perforated plate or a circular disk in a vertical low-speed wind tunnel, provide the required ambient turbulent environments for droplet evaporation experiments. The ambient turbulence intensities vary in the range of 1-60% and the integral length scales in the range of 0.5-20 times of the initial droplet diameter. Results show that normalized evaporation rate (K/K-L) decreases with increasing effective Damkohler number (0.0001 < Da(v) < 0.1) and is approximately equal to unity with further increasing Damkohler number (0.1 < Da(v) < 1). (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.