Combustion mechanism of liquid fuel spray in a gaseous flame

Two-dimensional direct numerical simulation is applied to spray flames stabilized in a laminar counterflow, and the detailed behavior is studied in terms of the droplet group combustion. The stretch ratio of the laminar counterflow is 40 1/s. n-decane (C10H22) is used as a liquid spray fuel, and a one-step global reaction is employed for the combustion reaction model. The results show that with increasing the issued liquid fuel mass fraction, two types of spray combustion appear in front of and inside the high gaseous temperature region, i.e., premixed-like combustion and diffusion-like combustion, respectively. A droplet group combustion behavior is observed in the diffusion-like combustion region. This diffusion-like combustion, however, disappears when the issued droplet size becomes small, because the droplets complete their evaporation before entering into the high gaseous temperature region. The droplet group combustion tends to reduce the gaseous temperature. This is caused mainly by the suppression of combustion reaction due to the lack of oxygen and partially by the energy exchange through the convective heat transfer between droplets and gaseous phase. The gaseous temperature reduction is promoted by the latent heat of vaporization of the droplets. The use of the parcel approach has a risk of causing a delay of combustion reaction, since the partial fuel vapor pressure increases at limited locations, which suppresses the global droplet evaporation rate.