LAMINAR COUNTERFLOW SPRAY DIFFUSION FLAMES - A COMPARISON BETWEEN EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND COMPLEX CHEMISTRY CALCULATIONS

Experimental and numerical studies of laminar flames formed by the counterflow of a monodisperse fuel spray with an air stream are reported in this article. In this simple configuration it is possible to analyze the influence of the phase transfer terms on the flame structure. The experimental setup used to produce such laminar spray diffusion flames is first described. A set of experiments are carried with liquid heptane fuel sprays. The flame is characterized with a laser sheet imaging system and with a particle sizing apparatus based on laser light diffraction. Results of a numerical study are then presented. The two phase-reacting flow equations are solved through Newton iterations and adaptative gridding using detailed transport and complex chemistry. An iterative procedure is devised to solve the gas- and liquid-phase balance equations. Comparison between experimental and numerical values of the diameter are found to be in good agreement.