During the last fifteen years, Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD) has become one of the most important tools to both understand
and improve the diesel spray development in Internal Combustion
Engine (ICE). Most of the approaches and models used pure Eulerian
or Lagrangian descriptions to simulate the spray behavior. However,
each one of them has both advantages and disadvantages in different
regions of the spray, it can be the dense zone or the downstream
dilute zone. One of the most promising techniques, which has been
in development since ten years ago, is the Eulerian-Lagrangian
Spray Atomization (ELSA) model. This is an integrated model for
capturing the whole spray evolution, including primary break-up and
secondary atomization.
In this paper, the ELSA numerical modeling of diesel sprays
implementation in Star-CD (2010) is studied, and simulated in
comparison with the diesel spray which has been experimentally
studied in our institute, CMT-Motores Térmicos. Since many of the
most important characteristics of the spray development, as the
penetration or the axial velocity, can be captured using 2D
simulations, in this preliminary validation of ELSA model only
two-dimensional simulations have been performed. Moreover, the main
objective of the paper is to: firstly, obtain mesh independency for
further analysis and secondly, improve the classic k-ε RANS model
for ELSA model. Apart from this, several characteristics of the
spray as can be the droplet formation of the liquid penetration are
also showed.