An Analytical Prediction of Water Droplet Travel when Discharged from the Face of an Evaporator Core

Here we present an analytical model, written in general terms, which predicts the trajectory of a spherical particle/droplet placed in a uniform fluid stream. The model is compared to an experiment in which three millimeter diameter polypropolyene spheres (specific gravity = 0.91) are dropped in a uniform airstream (velocity varies from 0.9 to 3.8 m/s). Agreement between the two suggests the model incorporates all the important physics and thus should be useful as a design tool.