Charge-effect on the homo-heterogeneous condensing flow

Based on the Fletcher's nucleation theory and the two-fluid model for homo-heterogeneous condensation, the effect of charge-effect on the condensing flow was discussed. The results show that the formula of the nucleation rate calculation with or without charge-effect both have high resolution. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimented results and the relative error is not than 5%, indicating that the two-fluid model for homo-heterogeneous condensation has high precision. When the particle is not charged, the difference of supercooling in the flow field before and after the input of particles with 5 nm radius is small. Although the input of 8 nm and 10 nm radius particles reduces the peak value of the supercooling as 2 K and 7 K respectively, it also causes the downstream migration of spontaneous condensation. When the particles are charged with a unit of electrical charge, i.e. Q=1e, the input of 5 nm radius particles shows most obvious effect on decreasing the nucleation energy barrier and improving the heterogeneous nucleation rate. This effect becomes weaker and even weakest with the input of 8 nm and 10 nm radius particles respectively. As the charge rise up to three units of electrical charge, the input of 5 nm and 8 nm radius particles reduce the peak value of supercooling as 10 K and 6 K compared with homogeneous condensation respectively, which also obviously inhibit the occurrence of homogeneous condensation. © 2016, Editorial Department of Journal of Aerospace Power. All right reserved.