Stochastic modeling of evaporating sprays within a consistent hybrid joint PDF framework

In the present study, a framework for modeling two-phase evaporating flow is presented, which employs an Eulerian-Lagrangian-Lagrangian approach. For the continuous phase, a joint velocity-composition probability density function (PDF) method is used. Opposed to other approaches, such PDF methods require no modeling for turbulent convection and chemical source terms. For the dispersed phase, the PDF of velocity, diameter, temperature, seen gas velocity and seen gas composition is calculated. This provides a unified formulation, which allows to consistently address the different modeling issues associated with such a system. Because of the high dimensionality, particle methods are employed to solve the PDF transport equations. To further enhance computational efficiency, a local particle time-stepping algorithm is implemented and a particle time-averaging technique is employed to reduce statistical and bias errors. In comparison to previous studies, a significantly smaller number of droplet particles per grid cell can be employed for the computations, which rely on two-way coupling between the droplet and gas phases. The framework was validated using established experimental data and a good overall agreement can be observed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.