Heat and mass transfer of combusting monodisperse droplets in a linear stream

Heat and mass transfer phenomena in fuel sprays is a key issue in the field of the design of the combustion chambers where the fuel is injected on a liquid form. The development and validation of new physical models related to heat transfer and evaporation in sprays requires reliable experimental data. This paper reports on an experimental study of the energy budget, i.e. internal flux, evaporation flux and convective heat flux for monodisperse combusting droplets in linear stream. The evaporation flux is characterized by the measurement of the droplet size reduction by the phase Doppler technique, and the droplet mean temperature, required for the internal and convective heat flux evaluation, is determined by two-color, laser-induced fluorescence. The Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are evaluated from the heat and mass fluxes estimation, as a function of the inter-droplet distance. The results are compared to physical models available in the literature, for moving, evaporating and isolated droplets. A correction factor of the isolated droplet model, taking into account drop-drop interaction on the Sherwood and Nusselt numbers, is proposed. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.