Hybrid VOF–Lagrangian CFD Modeling of Droplet Aerobreakup

Abstract

A hybrid VOF–Lagrangian method for simulating the aerodynamic breakup of liquid droplets induced by a traveling shock wave is proposed and tested. The droplet deformation and fragmentation, together with the subsequent mist development, are predicted by using a fully three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model following the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes approach. The main characteristics of the aerobreakup process under the shear-induced entrainment regime are effectively reproduced by employing the scale-adaptive simulation method for unsteady turbulent flows. The hybrid two-phase method combines the volume-of-fluid technique for tracking the transient gas–liquid interface on the finite volume grid and the discrete phase model for following the dynamics of the smallest liquid fragments. The proposed computational approach for fluids engineering applications is demonstrated by making a comparison with reference experiments and high-fidelity numerical simulations, achieving acceptably accurate results without being computationally expensive.