Droplet Evaporation Dynamics in Combustion Systems

Droplet evaporation lies at the heart of liquid‐fuelled combustion, dictating ignition delays, flame stability and pollutant formation in engines and industrial burners. The process couples heat and mass transfer across the liquid–vapour interface, with droplet size, shape, internal circulation and ambient conditions jointly determining the rate of mass loss. In practical environments, interactions with turbulence, pressure fluctuations and multicomponent fuel chemistry complicate the classical picture, requiring advanced diagnostic and computational tools. Improved understanding of evaporation dynamics supports more efficient engine cycles, reduced soot and nitrogen‐oxide emissions, and optimised fire-extinguishing agents. Recent progress ranges from single-droplet experiments under well-controlled conditions to multidimensional simulations that resolve the transient interplay of thermal conduction, convective transport and phase equilibrium. Ongoing challenges include capturing non-ideal thermodynamics at high pressures, quantifying the role of ambient humidity and validating model predictions against in-situ measurements in realistic combustion chambers.

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Droplet Evaporation Dynamics in Combustion Systems publication trend

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Technical terms

d²-law: A classical approximation stating that the square of a droplet’s diameter decreases linearly with time under steady evaporation conditions.

Volume Of Fluid (VOF) method: A numerical technique for capturing the interface between immiscible phases by tracking the volume fraction of each phase in computational cells.

Phase rainbow refractometry (PRR): An optical diagnostic that exploits light scattering patterns to measure transient droplet size, temperature and refractive index simultaneously.

Aspect ratio: The ratio of a droplet’s major to minor axis, used to characterise deviations from sphericity in prolate or oblate shapes.

Convective heat transfer coefficient: A proportionality factor relating the heat flux at a surface to the temperature difference between the surface and the surrounding fluid.

References

1. Heating and evaporation of a mono-component spheroidal droplet with non-uniform surface temperature. Applied Mathematical Modelling (2024).
2. High humidity enhances the evaporation of non-aqueous volatile sprays. Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2023).
3. DropletSMOKE++: A comprehensive multiphase CFD framework for the evaporation of multidimensional fuel droplets. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (2019).