Droplet trajectories of wave-impact sea spray on a marine vessel

• A new model for prediction of characteristics of wave-impact sea spray was developed.
• The basis of this model is sheet breakup on a vessel bow.
• This model suggests that droplet sizes are inversely proportional to droplet velocities.
• This proposed model was verified by comparing it to the LWC reported from field observations.

Marine icing phenomena are strongly dependent on the rate of water impact to marine vessels. The most important source of this incoming water is wave-impact sea spray. There is limited understanding of droplet size and velocity distributions of wave-impact sea spray. Initial distributions of the size and velocity of droplets are crucial for the calculation of the droplet path and consequently for determining the water impact to every individual place on marine vessels. This paper develops a new model of wave-impact sea spray using a distribution of the size and velocity of droplets at the edge of the vessel. The concepts of water-sheet breakup and droplet breakup lead to an inverse dependence between the size and velocity of droplets after the breakup process. Droplets take different paths and form a spray cloud in front of the vessel. The liquid water content in front of the vessel can be calculated by considering the arrangement, sizes, and velocities of a set of droplets in the spray cloud. The response of the droplet trajectory model to various initial conditions with different sets of droplet sizes and velocities is examined. The numerical results are compared to real data from field observations. Droplet sizes are inversely proportional to droplet velocities, as verified by liquid water content data obtained by the field observations. This paper proposes the use of this inverse relationship based on physics of the breakup process as the initial data for calculating the wave-impact sea spray trajectory in front of a vessel.