Effect of initial conditions of modeled PDFs on droplet characteristics for coalescing and evaporating turbulent water spray used in fire suppression applications

Parametric studies were conducted for a coalescing and evaporating turbulent water spray using a stochastic separated flow technique that includes submodels for droplet dynamics, heat and mass transfer, and droplet–droplet binary collisions. While the initial droplet size distribution, in general, is not known due to the difficulty in the optical access to the nozzle exit region, the size distribution is modeled using the analytical PDFs (probability density functions) such as log-normal, Rosin–Rammler, Gaussian, and Nukiyama–Tanasawa distribution model. Standard deviation of the PDFs is varied and their effects on droplet size and speed distribution in the downstream are reported. The arithmetic mean droplet size at the nozzle exit, which is used as input for simulations, was extrapolated using the existing experimental data obtained at downstream locations.