Droplet Evaporation in a Turbulent Environment at Elevated Pressure and Temperature Conditions

A three-dimensional numerical model is developed to assess the effect of freestream turbulence on the vaporization of n-heptane droplet, which is exposed to a freestream of nitrogen at elevated pressure and subcritical temperature conditions. The freestream pressure, temperature and turbulence intensity are varied in the range of 0.5-10 MPa, 324-502 K, and 0%-60%, respectively. Variable thermophysical properties, the unsteadiness behavior of the gas and liquid phases, as well as heat transfer by radiation are all considered. In addition, non-ideality behavior of the gas phase, solubility of the gas into the droplet and pressure dependence of the gas-phase thermophysical properties are also accounted for. The turbulence terms in the conservation equations of the gas-phase are modeled by using the shear-stress transport (SST) model. The results show that, for the temperature range (T ∞