Numerical study of evaporation by mixed convection of a binary liquid film flowing down the wall of two coaxial cylinders

Abstract

Evaporation by mixed convection of a binary liquid film flowing down the external wall of a vertical cylinder has been investigated numerically. Two cases were considered: one where the cylinder wall is soaked with a liquid, and another where a liquid film flows along this wall. Heat, mass and momentum transfer in the liquid film and the vapor phase are modelled by mixed convection equations. In order to locate the liquid–vapor interface, a suitable coordinate transformation is carried out with suitable variables. The discretization of the dimensionless equations by an implicit difference scheme leads to a system of algebraic equations, which are solved by using Gauss algorithm for the momentum conservation equations and Thomas algorithm for the energy and diffusion conservation equations. The film thickness is calculated by the Newton’s method. Results show, in particular, that the film thickness cannot be neglected and that the latent heat transfers are increasingly significant as the liquid film components become more volatile.