Influence of Vapour Bubbles Size and Spacing on Droplet Impact Outcomes under Subcooled Boiling Regimes

• Autor(a) principal: Vasconcelos, Daniel
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Silva, A. R. R., Barata, Jorge M M
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/12554
• topic: Numerical Simulation; Droplet Impact; Vapour Bubbles; Subcooled Boiling Regime

Multiphase flows are characterised as heterogeneous mixtures of two or more phases, such as gas-liquid or solid-liquid. These are extremely complex due to the underlying dynamics that may occur, which include interfacial phenomena, such as boiling and evaporation, and interactions between phases. Specifically, droplet impact onto heated wetted surfaces has been overlooked in the literature, which involves heat and mass transfer mechanisms related to sensible heating, condensation and evaporation. The droplet impact phenomenon occurs in several industrial applications, such as internal combustion engines, electronics cooling devices, heat exchangers, among others. In numerical terms, improving efficiency and reliability of simulations is of interest to understand the behaviour of mathematical models for complex physical systems. The main objective of this work is to numerically simulate droplet impact onto a heated liquid film in the presence of vapour bubbles in a 2D-axisymmetric assumption. The numerical model solves the incompressible mass, momentum and energy equations coupled with the VOF method and height functions for accurately capturing the interface. Phase-change processes such as evaporation and condensation are neglected for the current simulations. Water and n-decane are the fluids adopted for the simulation. The impact conditions are D0 = 3.0 mm, h* = 0.5, and U0 = 3.0 m/s. Different vapour bubble sizes, (Dv), and spacings, (xv), are studied to evaluate the vapour bubble phenomena and crown geometrical parameters. An initial vapour bubble is positioned on the axis of symmetry, xs = 0, and, therefore, in the droplet trajectory. Results indicate that vapour bubbles have a lower influence on crown diameter, and a higher influence on crown height. Increasing the size of vapour bubbles leads to a decrease in both crown diameter and height, whereas an increase in the vapour bubbles spacing causes an increase in the crown height and diameter. The initial vapour bubble positioning in relation to the axis of symmetry is a factor that should also be considered in future studies.