Numerical analysis of droplet combustion process: Heating, evaporation, ignition and burning

Abstract

Abstract Droplet combustion processes of benzene and n‐heptane liquid fuels, including heating, evaporation, ignition and burning, are numerically investigated and compared with the available measured results found in the literature. Investigation shows that the consideration of thermal radiation effect does not introduce too many differences of ignition‐time predictions in the modeling compared to that obtained without thermal radiation effect. However, the predicted ignition times associated with the assumption of semitransparent droplets are mostly in agreement with the measured ones. In contrast, the difference between the predictions of the burned‐out time with and without thermal radiation effect are significant. Finally, the assumption of constant thermophysical properties in the modeling leads to some prediction errors, in comparison with the model associated with the variable thermophysical properties, but this is relatively minor.