Abstract
A novel method for estimating droplet charge in numerical simulations of conductively and inductively charged sprays is presented. This method is based on balancing the effective electric field at the sprayer nozzle with the global electric field induced by the charged droplets. The global approach avoids the need for computationally expensive local resolution of the spray formation region, allowing it to be used in Eulerian–Lagrangian simulations of high-flowrate sprays. The method is validated against experimental data from literature, proving it can predict droplet charge with reasonable engineering accuracy, over a wide range of spray parameters, for conductive spray liquids.
Highlights
Charged sprays presently exist in a plethora of sizes, forms, and applications [1]
We suggest recomputing the spray current, and droplet charges, whenever new Lagrangian parcels are injected into the simulation
These potentials are used to compute the spray current, which is plotted in Fig. 6b, compared to the values measured by Marchewicz et al [11]
Summary
Charged sprays presently exist in a plethora of sizes, forms, and applications [1]. We propose an efficient numerical approach for estimating droplet charge in directly-charged, high-flowrate sprays In this context, direct charging means the spray liquid takes on charge via conductive contact with an electrode. For capillary electrosprays with flowrates on the order of millilitres per hour, Collins et al [7], Herrada et al [8], and Wei et al [9] have shown the feasibility of simulating the jet breakup and droplet formation using Volume of Fluid based methods. Such a detailed simulation would be impractical if not impossible when modelling industrial processes such as spray painting, with flowrates often exceeding 100 millilitres per minute. To demonstrate the accuracy and versatility of our method, we perform two simulations validated against measurement data from literature
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