A Cascade Atomization and Drop Breakup Model for the Simulation of High-Pressure Liquid Jets

A further development of the ETAB atomization and drop breakup model for high pressure-driven liquid fuel jets, has been developed, tuned and validated. As in the ETAB model, this breakup model reflects a cascade of drop breakups, where the breakup criterion is determined by the Taylor drop oscillator and each breakup event resembles experimentally observed breakup mechanisms. A fragmented liquid core due to inner-nozzle disturbances is achieved by injecting large droplets subject to this breakup cascade. These large droplets are equipped with appropriate initial deformation velocities in order to obtain experimentally observed breakup lengths. In contrast to the ETAB model which consideres only the bag breakup or the stripping breakup mechanism, the new model has been extended to include the catastrophic breakup regime. In addition, a continuity condition on the breakup parameters has lead to the reduction of one model constant. Further, the primary breakup has been adjusted in order to avoid the nonlinear dependence of the spray angle on the breakup length. The model has been tuned and validated by means of experimental data for non-evaporating, evaporating and reacting sprays under controlled conditions in constant-volume or constant-pressure combustion vessels using a KIVA-based code.