Evaporation of Water Droplets in a High-Temperature Gaseous Medium

Abstract

A numerical solution of the problem of heat and mass transfer in evaporation of a droplet of water moving in a stream of high-temperature (up to 1200 K) gases is done on the basis of a system of nonlinear nonstationary partial differential equations describing conductive and radiative heat transfer in the droplet, as well as composite heat transfer at the ″liquid–gas″ interface. The values of the water evaporation rate have been determined. It is shown that the dependence of the evaporation rate on the droplet surface temperature has a nonlinear character. Characteristic relationships between the convective and radiative heat fluxes on the droplet surface (the radiative flux substantially exceeds the convective one; on decrease in the difference between the gas and droplet surface temperatures the difference between the radiative and convective heat fluxes decreases), the lifetimes (total evaporation) of droplets, as well as of the temperature and concentration of steam and gases in the vicinity of droplets have been determined. The calculated characteristics of the water droplet evaporation under conditions of high temperatures of the gas medium differ considerably from those obtained within the framework of the "diffusional" model of evaporation. A comparison of the results of numerical simulation with the experimental data obtained with the use of high-velocity panoramic optical methods of visualization by ″tracing particles″ is carried out.