A new correlation for turbulent mass transfer from liquid droplets

This paper presents a new correlation for mass transfer from single liquid droplets into a turbulent environment. Experiments were carried out under ambient room temperature and pressure. Homogeneous isotropic turbulence with zero-mean velocity was generated by eight identical electrical fans placed on the eight corners of a cubic chamber. The LDV technique was used to characterize the turbulence inside the chamber. The vaporization of fiber suspended droplets of five different n-alkanes and the bi-component droplet of n-heptane and n-decane mixtures subjected to varying turbulent kinetic energy is investigated by imaging techniques. For mono-component droplets the d2-law holds for all fuels and turbulent kinetic energies, and the vaporization rates increase with increasing the turbulent kinetic energy. Bi-component droplets exhibit a sequential vaporization behavior for all mixtures and turbulent kinetic energies. The instantaneous vaporization rates increase with increasing turbulence kinetic energy and increasing volume fraction of the highest volatility component. The proposed correlation predicts the vaporization rates of mono and bi-component n-alkane droplets subjected to isotropic turbulence with zero-mean velocity.