In this paper we numerically investigate the breakup dynamics of droplets in an emulsion flowing in a tapered microchannel with a narrow constriction. The mesoscale approach for multicomponent fluids with near contact interactions is shown to capture the deformation and breakup dynamics of droplets interacting within the constriction, in agreement with experimental evidences. In addition, it permits to investigate in detail the hydrodynamic phenomena occurring during the breakup stages. Finally, a suitable deformation parameter is introduced and analyzed to characterize the state of deformation of the system by inspecting pairs of interacting droplets flowing in the narrow channel.
The deformation and breakup of droplets in airflows is important in spray and atomisation processes, but the shear effect in non-uniform airflow is rarely reported. In this study, the deformation and breakup of droplets in a shear flow of air is investigated experimentally using high-speed imaging, digital image processing, and particle image velocimetry. The results show that in airflow with a strong shear effect, the droplet breakup exhibits unique features due to the uplift and stretching produced by the interaction between the deformed droplet and the shear layer. The breakup process can b…
The breakup of non-Newtonian droplets is ubiquitous in numerous applications. Although the non-Newtonian property can significantly change the droplet breakup process, most previous studies consider Newtonian droplets, and the effects of the non-Newtonian properties on the breakup process are still unclear. This study focuses on the secondary breakup of shear-thinning droplets by numerical simulation. The volume of fluid method is used to capture interface dynamics on adaptive grids. To compare shear-thinning droplets and Newtonian droplets, a new definition of the Ohnesorge number is proposed…
The deformation and breakup of droplets in air flows is important in many applications of spray and atomization processes. However, the shear effect of airflow has never been reported. In this study, the deformation and breakup of droplets in the shear flow of air is investigated experimentally using high-speed imaging, digital image processing, and particle image velocimetry. We identify a new breakup mode of droplets, i.e., the butterfly breakup, in which the strong aerodynamic pressure on the lower part of the droplet leads to the deflection of the droplet and then the formation of a butter…
We combine theory, numerical simulation and experiments to investigate the breakup of two identical droplets entering a Y-junction with controlled spatial offset by which the second droplet trails the first. Based on fully resolved 3D simulations, we describe the flow physics leading to breakup. Scaling arguments, numerical simulation and experiments consistently show that for small initial offset, breakup always occurs with the droplet fragment volume depending linearly on the offset. Above a critical offset, which increases with the capillary number, the droplets enter the constriction seque…
We experimentally investigate the deformation and breakup of droplets interacting with an oblique continuous air stream. A high-speed imaging system is employed to record the trajectories and topological changes of the droplets of different liquids. The droplet size, the orientation of the air nozzle to the horizontal and fluid properties (surface tension and viscosity) are varied to study different breakup modes. We found that droplet possessing initial momentum prior to entering the continuous air stream exhibits a variation in the required Weber number for the vibrational to the bag breakup…
Aerobreakup of fluid droplets under the influence of impulsively generated high-speed gas flow using an open-ended shock tube is studied using experiments and numerical simulations. Breakup of mm-sized droplets at high Weber number was analyzed for water and two-phase nanofluids consisting of dispersions of Al2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles in water with high loading of 20 and 40 weight % respectively. Droplet breakup is visualized using high-speed imaging in the experimental setup, where an open ended shock tube generates impulsive high-speed flow impinging on a droplet held stationary using an ac…
The experimental time-lapse images of the breakup phenomenon of a charged droplet (diameter ~100-300 micro-m) levitated in an electrodynamic (ED) balance is reported. During the breakup process, a levitated charged droplet undergoes evaporation leading to a reduction in droplet size and increase in the corresponding surface charge density. As the surface charge density reaches to a critical value, known as the Rayleigh limit, the droplet undergoes breakup by forming a jet which further ejects highly charged progeny droplets. All the successive events of the droplet breakup process such as drop…
We study droplet dynamics and breakup in generic time-dependent flows via a multicomponent Lattice Boltzmann algorithm, with emphasis on flow start up conditions. We first study droplet breakup in a confined oscillatory shear flow via two different protocols. In one set up, we start from an initially spherical droplet and turn on the flow abruptly ("shock method"); in the other protocol, we start from an initially spherical droplet as well, but we progressively increase the amplitude of the flow, by allowing the droplet to relax to the steady state for each increase in amplitude, before increa…
Experimental and model-assisted analysis of lamella thinning and breakup in diesel-surrogate fuel-droplet wall impingement under Leidenfrost conditions
A spontaneous breakup of a liquid jet results in the formation of a chain of droplets, which is a daily observed phenomenon, such as in the raining process and under an open water-faucet. We here report inkjet printing experiments for the formation of droplets which are inconsistent with existing theories and thereafter propose a novel concept of surface area minimization to address the droplet-formation condition. The novel concept is also capable of predicting the formation of satellite and subsatellite droplets, which cannot be comprehended by the classic Rayleigh theory for the formation o…
We delineate and examine the distinct breakup modes of evaporating water-in-oil emulsion droplets under acoustic levitation. The emulsion droplets consist of decane/dodecane/tetradecane as oil, while the water concentration is varied from 10% to 30% (v/v). The droplets were heated under different laser irradiation intensities and were observed to exhibit three broad breakup mechanisms, viz., breakup through bubble growth, sheet breakup, and catastrophic breakup. The occurrence of these modes of the breakup is found to be primarily dependent on the volatility differential among the components. …
In the context of many applications of turbulent multi-phase flows, knowledge of the dispersed phase size distribution and its evolution is critical to predicting important macroscopic features. We use a population dynamics model for polydisperse droplet distributions specifically adapted to a LES framework including a model for droplet breakup due to turbulence, neglecting coalescence. Following earlier methods used in the Reynolds averaged Navier--Stokes framework, the droplet breakup due to turbulent fluctuations is modelled by treating droplet-eddy collisions as in kinetic theory of gases.…
The breakup of a spherical droplet in a decaying homogeneous isotropic turbulence is studied by solving the Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes equations, using the discrete unified gas kinetic scheme combined with the free-energy-based phase-field model. We focus on the combined effects of turbulence and surface tension on the breakup process by assuming that the two fluid phases have the same density and same viscosity. The key physical parameters of the system include the volume fraction (6.54%), the initial Weber number (21.7), and the initial Taylor microscale Reynolds number (58). Three distinct…
Experimental and modelling study is presented for the effect of a wide range of liquid viscosities on the droplet impact on a smooth solid surface at atmospheric pressure. A non-monotonic variation of threshold between droplet deposition and splash was observed experimentally. Specifically, the critical Weber number separating deposition from splashing decreases and then increases with increasing the Ohnesorge number. The observations of splash in low viscosity region and receding breakup in high viscosity region were analyzed qualitatively from the perspectives of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability…
Rayleigh instability that results in the breakup of a charged droplet, levitated in a quadrupole trap, has been investigated in the literature, but only scarcely. We report here asymmetric breakup of a charged drop, levitated in a loose trap, wherein, the droplet is stabilized at an off-center location in the trap. This aspect of levitation leads to an asymmetric breakup of the charged drop, predominantly in a direction opposite to that of gravity. In a first of its kind of study, we capture the successive events of the droplet deformation, breakup and relaxation of the drop after jet ejection…
One-dimensional numerical simulations based on hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian method are performed to study the interactions between propagating shocks and dispersed evaporating water droplets. Two-way coupling for exchanges of mass, momentum, energy and vapour species is adopted for the dilute two-phase gas-droplet flows. Interphase interactions and droplet breakup dynamics are investigated with initial droplet diameters of 30, 50, 70 and 90 μm under an incident shock wave Mach number of 1.3. Novel two-phase flow phenomena are observed when droplet breakup occurs. First, droplets near the two-pha…
The statistics of the deformation and breakup of neutrally buoyant sub-Kolmogorov ellipsoidal drops is investigated via Lagrangian simulations of homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The mean lifetime of a drop is also studied as a function of the initial drop size and the capillary number. A vector model of drop previously introduced by Olbricht, Rallison and Leal [J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech. $\mathbf{10}$, 291 (1982)] is used to predict the behaviour of the above quantities analytically.
Atomization of emulsion droplets is ubiquitous across a variety of application domains ranging from NextGen combustors to fabrication of biomedical implants. An understanding of the atomization mechanism in emulsions can result in a paradigm shift in customized designs of efficient systems, be it in energy or biotechnology sectors. In this paper, we specifically study the breakup mechanism of an evaporating contact-free (acoustic levitation) emulsion droplet (water-oil) under external heating. Three distinct regimes are observed during the lifespan of the evaporating droplet. Initially, the dr…
We experimentally investigate impact dynamics of a microliter water droplet on a hydrophobic microgrooved surface. The surface is fabricated using photolithography and high-speed visualization is employed to record the time-varying droplet shapes in transverse as well as longitudinal direction. The effect of the pitch of the grooved surface and Weber number on droplet dynamics and impact outcome are studied. At low pitch and Weber number, the maximum droplet spreading is found to be greater in the longitudinal direction than the transverse direction to the grooves. The preferential spreading i…
We report the breakup dynamics of a magnetically active droplet (ferrofluid droplet) in a T-shaped LOC device under the modulation of a non-uniform magnetic field. We adhere to high-speed imaging modalities for the experimental quantification of the droplet splitting phenomena in the presence of a non-uniform force field gradient, while the underlying phenomena is supported by the numerical results in a qualitative manner as well. On reaching the T-junction divergence, the droplet engulfs the intersection fully and eventually deforms into the dumbbell-shaped form making its bulges to move towa…
Breakup of liquid drops occurs in several natural and industrial settings. Fully resolved Volume of Fluid based simulations presented in this study reveal the complete flow physics and droplet dynamics that lead to the breakup of a drop in a particular mode. We have investigated the effects of density ratio and Reynolds number on the dynamics of drop deformation and subsequent breakup. A density ratio-Weber number phase plot is presented that indicates the variation in the deformation of the drop at various density ratios and Weber numbers. We show that the breakup dynamics of the droplets at …
In this study, we perform a numerical analysis of the instability of a ligament in shear flow and investigate the effects of air-liquid shear on the growth rate of the ligament interface, breakup time, and droplet diameter formed by the breakup. The ligament is stretched in the flow direction by the shearing of airflow. Furthermore, as the influence of the shear flow increases, the ligament becomes deformed into a liquid sheet, and a perforation forms at the center of the liquid sheet. The liquid sheet breaks up due to the growth of the perforation and contracts under the influence of surface …
In the present study, detailed numerical simulations are performed to investigate the primary breakup of a gasoline surrogate jet under non-evaporative "Spray G" operating conditions. The Spray G injector and operating conditions, developed by the Engine Combustion Network (ECN), represent the early phase of spray-guided gasoline injection. To focus the computational resources on resolving the primary breakup, simplifications have been made on the injector geometry. The effect of the internal flow on the primary breakup is modeled by specifying a nonzero injection angle at the inlet. The nonze…
A population balance model coupled with large eddy simulations (LES) is adapted and applied to study the evolution of oil droplets in a turbulent jet including the effects of droplet breakup. A key unknown in simulating secondary breakup in turbulent multiphase jets is the inflow size distribution generated within the primary breakup zone near the nozzle exit. A mono-disperse injection inflow condition is commonly used for simplicity, but this choice is often unrealistic. In order to provide more realistic inlet conditions for LES, we develop a one dimensional (1D) parcel model to predict the …
An experimental investigation of secondary atomization of spray in plain-jet airblast atomizers with a circular array of six liquid jets is studied. Crossflow of air with controlled velocity and pressure is applied to transverse jets. The liquid jets (Re=12000) are injected into airflow (Weg of 1250-3000) analyzed experimentally for different injection diameters of 0.8-1.6 mm. Particle size distribution measurement is carried out by Malvern Mastersizer X in the fully atomized region of the atomizer. The droplet size distribution in the secondary or final atomization stage is also modeled by th…
We present a technique to perform interface-resolved simulations of complex breakup dynamics in two-phase flows using the Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes equations. The method dynamically decreases the interface thickness parameter in relevant regions and simultaneously increases local mesh resolution, preventing numerical artifacts. We perform a detailed numerical simulation of pulsed jet atomization that shows a complex cascade of break-up mechanisms involving sheet rupture and filament formation. To understand the effect of refinement on the breakup, we analyze the droplet size distribution. Th…
This study concerns the effects of pressure, spatial location, and application of oil emulsions on the resulting droplet size, eccentricity, as well as velocity distributions, all of which are crucial information in determining the dispersion dynamics of the droplets during the spray applications. Experiments were conducted with the abovementioned droplets information measured using digital inline holography (DIH). Results show that the volumetric droplet size distributions (VDSD) span widely from sub-200 um to over 2 mm in size. The application of an oil-in-water emulsion results largely in t…
This study experimentally explores fluid breakup and Leidenfrost dynamics for droplets impacting a heated millimetric post. Using high-speed optical and infrared imaging, we investigate the droplet lifetime, breakup and boiling modes, as well as the cooling performance of different substrates. The post substrate leads to a shorter droplet lifetime and a 20°C higher Leidenfrost temperature compared to a flat substrate, attributed to mixed boiling modes along the height of the post and additional pinning. For temperatures below the Leidenfrost point, in the nucleate boiling regime, the post subs…
Deformation and breakup of a ferrofluid compound droplet migrating in a microchannel under a magnetic field: A phase-field-based multiple-relaxation time lattice Boltzmann study
We simulate gravity driven dynamics of partially wetting droplets moving along a fibre using the lattice Boltzmann method. For the so-called clamshell morphology, we find three possible dynamic regimes upon varying the droplet Bond number and the fibre radius: compact droplet, droplet breakup and droplet oscillation. For small Bond numbers, in the compact droplet regime, the droplet reaches a steady state and its velocity scales linearly with the driving body force. A similar scaling law can also be observed for the barrel morphology. For higher Bond numbers, in the droplet breakup regime, sat…
