Analysis of evaporation of dense cluster of bicomponent fuel droplets in a spray using a spherical cell model

Evaporation of dense cluster of bicomponent fuel drops has been analyzed using a spherical cell model. The motivation of the work is to develop a droplet model that considers multicomponent and interference effects but is simple enough to be incorporated in a spray combustion code. The behaviour of the array of droplets in the spray has been analysed in terms of a unit cell, which represents the sphere of influence of the droplet. The gas-phase transport has been modelled as convective–diffusive while the liquid-phase processes as transient-diffusive. Convective heat and mass transfer condition has been used at the cell surface. Incomplete evaporation (saturation) due to accumulation of fuel vapour and complete evaporation respectively have been observed in regions of dense and dilute clusters of droplets. Close to the saturation, the evaporation from the droplet takes place at a rate comparable to the mass diffusion within the droplet.