A Numerical Study of the Spray Characteristics of the UIUC Subsonic Wind Tunnel

A. Khodadoust and M.B. Bragg
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801


ABSTRACT
The behavior of water droplet trajectories in the two-dimensional subsonic wind tunnel at the University of Illinois was studied numerically. A finite difference two-dimensional potential flow solver and a three-dimensional particle trajectory code have been written and validated for solving the flowfield inside of a subsonic incompressible flow wind tunnel and computing particle trajectories. Seven droplet sizes ranging from 6.31 to 45.19 microns were used in this study based on the Langmuir-D distribution for a mean volumetric diameter of 20.36 microns. The droplets were released upstream of the contraction in the inlet of the wind tunnel. The results of this computational study showed that the trajectory of the larger water droplets were affected by the droplet inertia and gravity more dramatically than that for the smaller particles. The calculated liquid water contents at a perpendicular plane in the center of the test section indicated a high concentration of large droplets near the tunnel centerline, where areas the smaller droplets can be expected to span the entire test section width. The analysis further revealed that the computed effective droplet distribution was skewed toward the larger droplets in comparison with the Langmuir-D distribution.






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