Droplets and Sprays : Simple Models of Complex Processes

This book acts as a guide to simple models that describe some of the complex fluid dynamics, heat/mass transfer and combustion processes in droplets and sprays. Attention is focused mainly on the use of classical hydrodynamics, and a combination of kinetic and hydrodynamic models, to analyse the heating and evaporation of mono- and multi-component droplets. The models were developed for cases when small and large numbers of components are present in droplets. Some of these models are used for the prediction of time to puffing/micro-explosion of composite water/fuel droplets ― processes that are widely used in combustion devices to stimulate disintegration of relatively large droplets into smaller ones. The predictions of numerical codes based on these models are validated against experimental results where possible. In most of the models, droplets are assumed to be spherical; some preliminary results of the generalisation of these models to the case of non-spherical droplets, approximating them as spheroids, are presented.

Sergei S. Sazhin is Professor of Thermal Physics at the University of Brighton (UK). He completed his Ph.D. degree (Physics and Mathematics) at St Petersburg State University (Russia) in 1977. Since 1996, he has been researching the modelling of fluid dynamics, heat transfer and combustion processes in internal combustion engines. He has supervised 14 successful Ph.D. completions over the past 25 years. In 1994, he was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is Author of over 500 research publications, mainly in international refereed journals, including 4 monographs.