Simulation of Liquid and Gas Phase Characteristics of Aerated-Liquid Jets in Quiescent and Cross Flow Conditions

Abstract

The simulation of the liquid- and gas-phase properties of aerated-liquid jets in various quiescent and cross flow conditions are presented in the study. For simplicity, water is used as the liquid for all test conditions. The effect of various air-to-liquid ratios under super-sonic cross flow conditions are simulated and compared to experimental conditions, which is taken in the supersonic wind tunnel with a dimension of 762 × 152 × 127 mm. An injector with an orifice diameter of 0.5 mm is used both in a non-aerated and aerated injection into a supersonic cross flow prescribed by the momentum flux ratio of the liquid jet to free stream air, q0. The initial conditions of the spray calculation were estimated from internal flow simulation using VOF and X-ray data. The conservation-element and solution-element (CE/SE) method, a novel numerical framework for general conservation law, is applied to simulate the compressible flow. The effect of degree of aeration, breakup, and mixing of the liquid spray are demonstrated. The spray penetration height and average droplet size along with a spray penetration axis are quantitatively compared with data. The shock train flow structures induced by the presence of a liquid jet are further discussed.