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Published January 25, 2018 | Published
Journal Article Open

Numerical simulation of the aerobreakup of a water droplet

Abstract

We present a three-dimensional numerical simulation of the aerobreakup of a spherical water droplet in the flow behind a normal shock wave. The droplet and surrounding gas flow are simulated using the compressible multicomponent Euler equations in a finite-volume scheme with shock and interface capturing. The aerobreakup process is compared with available experimental visualizations. Features of the droplet deformation and breakup in the stripping breakup regime, as well as descriptions of the surrounding gas flow, are discussed. Analyses of observed surface instabilities and a Fourier decomposition of the flow field reveal asymmetrical azimuthal modulations and broadband instability growth that result in chaotic flow within the wake region.

Additional Information

© 2017 Cambridge University Press. Received 29 October 2016; revised 28 October 2017; accepted 3 November 2017; first published online 29 November 2017. The authors gratefully acknowledge discussions with Professor G. Blanquart, and Drs V. Coralic and O. Schmidt. We also thank K. Maeda for his many important suggestions on the numerical algorithm and for help in implementing the code. The computation presented here utilized the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. This work was partially supported by the National Institutes of Health under grant 2P01-DK043881.

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023