ABSTRACT CTS-9753287 Qian Zhou/Purdue This research program will focus on spray modeling that will provide an efficient tool for fundamental studies and the development of engineering devices. The results of the research will be incorporated into engineering curriculum. An efficient group approach for the modeling of droplet dispersions and evaporation turbulent sprays will be developed. The model uses droplet groups to represent a spray. Each group containing many droplets has dimensional extent that grows with time due to turbulent droplet dispersion. The model will take into account of the effects of gas-phase turbulence on the droplet dispersion as well as vaporization and multiple-droplet interaction effects on droplet vaporization within a group. Turbulent spray combustion processes are utilized in many engineering applications. Understanding of mechanisms of the process is vital to the improvement of the efficiency of these processes and better control of pollutants in combustion products. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used increasingly. Although much progress has been made in CFD models, submodels such as droplet dispersion and vaporization still require improvement, which is the aim of the present research.
