Tutorial 14.

Modeling Evaporating
Liquid Spray

Introduction: In this tutorial, FLUENT’s air-blast atomizer model is

used to predict the droplet behavior of an evaporating methanol
spray. The air flow is modeled first as a steady-state problem with-
out droplets. To predict the behavior of individual droplets in the
atomizer, several other discrete-phase models, including collision
and breakup, are used in an unsteady calculation.
In this tutorial you will learn how to:
• Create periodic zones
• Define a discrete-phase spray injection for an air-blast atom-
izer
• Calculate a transient solution using the second-order implicit
unsteady formulation

Prerequisites: This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the
menu structure in FLUENT and that you have solved or read Tu-
torial 1. Some steps in the setup and solution procedure will not
be shown explicitly.

Problem Description: The geometry to be considered in this tutorial

is shown in Figure 14.1. Methanol is cooled to −10◦ C before being
introduced into an air-blast atomizer. The atomizer contains an
inner air stream surrounded by a swirling annular stream. (The
species include the components of air as well as water vapor, so
the model can be expanded to include combustion, if desired.) To
make use of the periodicity of the problem, only a 30-degree section
of the atomizer will be modeled.

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inner air stream

swirling annular stream

Y
Z
X

Figure 14.1: Problem Specification

Preparation

1. Copy the file spray/sector.msh from the FLUENT documentation

CD to your working directory (as described in Tutorial 1).

2. Start the 3D version of FLUENT.

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Step 1: Grid

1. Read in the mesh file sector.msh.

File −→ Read −→Case...

2. Check the grid.

Grid −→Check
FLUENT will perform various checks on the mesh and will report
the progress in the console window. Pay particular attention to the
reported minimum volume. Make sure this is a positive number.

3. Display the grid.

Display −→Grid...

(a) Under Options, select Faces.

(b) Under Surfaces, select only atomizer-wall, central air, and swirling air.
(c) Click the Colors... button.

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(d) In the Grid Colors panel, select Color By ID.

This will assign a different color to each zone in the domain,
rather than to each type of zone.
(e) In the Grid Display panel, click Display.
The graphics display will be updated to show the grid. You
will now change the display again to zoom in on an isometric
view of the atomizer section.

4. Change the display to an isometric view.

Display −→Views...

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(a) Select isometric in the Views list and click Restore.

(b) Zoom in with your mouse to obtain the view shown in Fig-
ure 14.2.

Y
Z
X

Grid Apr 19, 2001

FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, lam)

Figure 14.2: Air-Blast Atomizer Mesh Display

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5. Using the text interface, change zones periodic-a and periodic-b

from wall zones to periodic zones.
(a) In the console window, type the commands shown in boxes
in the dialog below.

> grid
/grid> modify-zones
/grid/modify-zones> list-zones
id name type material kind
---- ---------------- ----------------- ------------------ ----
1 fluid fluid air cell
2 atomizer-wall wall aluminum face
3 central_air mass-flow-inlet face
4 co-flow-air velocity-inlet face
5 outlet pressure-outlet face
6 swirling_air velocity-inlet face
7 periodic-a wall aluminum face
8 periodic-b wall aluminum face
9 outer-wall wall aluminum face
11 default-interior interior face

/grid/modify-zones> make-periodic
Periodic zone [()] 7
Shadow zone [()] 8
Rotational periodic? (if no, translational) [yes] yes
Create periodic zones? [yes] yes

all 1923 faces matched for zones 7 and 8.

zone 8 deleted

created periodic zones.

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6. Reorder the grid.

To speed up the solution procedure, the mesh should be reordered,
which will substantially reduce the bandwidth.
Grid −→ Reorder −→Domain
FLUENT will report its progress in the console window:

>> Reordering domain using Reverse Cuthill-McKee method:

zones, cells, faces, done.
Bandwidth reduction = 3286/102 = 32.22
Done.

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Step 2: Models

1. Keep the default solver settings.

Define −→ Models −→Solver...

2. Enable heat transfer by activating the energy equation.

Define −→ Models −→Energy...

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3. Enable the realizable k- turbulence model.

Define −→ Models −→Viscous...

The realizable k- model gives a more accurate prediction of the

spreading rate of both planar and round jets than the standard k-
model.

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4. Enable chemical species transport and reaction.

Define −→ Models −→Species...

(a) Select Species Transport under Model.

(b) Choose methyl-alcohol-air in the Mixture Material drop-down
list.
The Mixture Material list contains the set of chemical mix-
tures that exist in the FLUENT database. By selecting one
of the pre-defined mixtures, you are accessing a complete de-
scription of the reacting system. The chemical species in the
system and their physical and thermodynamic properties are
defined by your selection of the mixture material. You can al-
ter the mixture material selection or modify the mixture mate-
rial properties using the Materials panel (see Step 6: Solution:
Unsteady Flow).

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! When you click OK, the console window will list the prop-
erties that are required for the models you have enabled.
You will see an Information dialog box, reminding you to
confirm the property values that have been extracted from
the database.
(c) Click OK in the Information dialog box to continue.

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Step 3: Boundary Conditions

Define −→Boundary Conditions...

1. Set the following conditions for the inner air stream (central air).

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2. Set the following conditions for the air stream surrounding the
atomizer (co-flow-air).

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3. Set the following conditions for the exit boundary (outlet).

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4. Set the following conditions for the swirling annular stream

(swirling air).

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5. Set the following conditions for the outer wall of the atomizer
(outer-wall).

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Step 4: Initial Solution Without Droplets

The airflow will first be solved and analyzed without droplets.

1. Initialize the flow field.

Solve −→ Initialize −→Initialize...

(a) Select co-flow-air in the Compute From drop-down list.

(b) Click Init to initialize the variables, and then close the panel.

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2. Keep the default under-relaxation factors.

Solve −→ Controls −→Solution...

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3. Turn on residual plotting during the calculation.

Solve −→ Monitors −→Residual...

(a) Under Options, select Plot.

(b) Click OK.

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4. Save the case file (spray1.cas).

File −→ Write −→Case...

5. Start the calculation by requesting 200 iterations.

Solve −→Iterate...
The solution will converge after about 175 iterations.

6. Save the case and data files (spray1.cas and spray1.dat).

File −→ Write −→Case & Data...
Note: FLUENT will ask you to confirm that the previous case file
is to be overwritten.

7. Create a clip plane to examine the flow field at the midpoint of the
atomizer section.
Surface −→Iso-Surface...

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(a) Select Grid... and Angular Coordinate in the Surface of Constant

lists.
(b) Click on Compute to update the minimum and maximum val-
ues.
(c) Enter 15 in the Iso-Values field.
(d) Enter angle=15 for the New Surface Name.
(e) Click on Create to create the isosurface.

8. Review the current state of the solution by examining contours of

velocity magnitude (Figure 14.3).
Display −→Contours...

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(a) Select Velocity... and Velocity Magnitude in the Contours Of

drop-down list.
(b) Under Options, select Filled and Draw Grid.
This will open the Grid Display panel.

(c) Keep the current grid display settings and close the Grid Dis-
play panel.
(d) In the Contours panel, select angle=15 in the Surfaces list.
(e) Click Display.
(f) Use your mouse to obtain the view shown in Figure 14.3.

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8.53e+01

7.68e+01

6.82e+01

5.97e+01

5.12e+01

4.27e+01

3.41e+01

2.56e+01

1.71e+01

8.53e+00
Y
Z
0.00e+00 X

Contours of Velocity Magnitude (m/s) Jul 03, 2001

FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, spe5, rke)

Figure 14.3: Velocity Magnitude at Mid-Point of Atomizer Section

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9. Display path lines of the air in the swirling annular stream (Fig-
ure 14.4).
Display −→Path Lines...

(a) In the Release From Surfaces list, select swirling air.

You will need to scroll down to access this item.
(b) Increase the Skip value to 5.
(c) Under Options, select Draw Grid.
This will open the Grid Display panel.
(d) Keep the current grid display settings and close the Grid Dis-
play panel.
(e) Click Display in the Path Lines panel.
(f) Use your mouse to obtain the view shown in Figure 14.4.

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3.00e+01

2.70e+01

2.40e+01

2.10e+01

1.80e+01

1.50e+01

1.20e+01

9.00e+00

6.00e+00

3.00e+00
Y
Z
0.00e+00 X

Path Lines Colored by Particle Id Jul 03, 2001

FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, spe5, rke)

Figure 14.4: Path Lines of Air in the Swirling Annular Stream

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Step 5: Enable Time Dependence and Create a

Spray Injection
In this step you will define a transient flow and create a discrete phase
spray injection.

1. Enable a time-dependent flow calculation.

Define −→ Models −→Solver...

(a) Under Time, select Unsteady.

(b) Under Unsteady Formulation, select 2nd-Order Implicit.

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2. Define the discrete phase modeling parameters.

Define −→ Models −→Discrete Phase...

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(a) Define the interphase interaction.

i. Under Interaction, turn on Interaction with Continuous Phase.
This will include the effects of the discrete phase trajec-
tories on the continuous phase.
ii. Under Number of Continuous Phase Iterations per DPM
Iteration, enter a value of 1000.
This option controls the iterative solution of the discrete
phase within each gas-phase time step. Higher values are
more desirable for sprays.
(b) Specify the Tracking Parameters.
i. Deselect the Specify Length Scale option.
ii. Keep the default value of Step Length Factor.
(c) Set the Unsteady Options.
i. Under Spray Models, select Droplet Collision and Droplet
Breakup.
ii. Under Breakup Model, keep the default selection of TAB.
iii. Under Constants, enter a value of 0.05 for y0.
This parameter is the dimensionless droplet distortion at
t = 0.
(d) Under Drag Parameters, select dynamic-drag in the Drag Law
drop-down list.
The dynamic-drag law is available only when the Droplet Breakup
model is used.

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3. Create the spray injection.

In this step, you will define the characteristics of the atomizer.
Define −→Injections...

(a) Click the Create button at the top of the panel.

This will open the Set Injection Properties panel.

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(b) In the Injection Type drop-down list, select air-blast-atomizer.

(c) Increase the Number Of Particle Streams to 60.
This option controls how many parcels of droplets are intro-
duced into the domain at every time step.
(d) Under Particle Type, select Droplet.
(e) In the Material drop-down list, select methyl-alcohol-liquid.
(f) Set the point properties for the injection.

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i. Set the X-Position, Y-Position, and Z-Position of the injec-

tion to 0, 0, and 0.0015.
ii. Set the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and Z-Axis of the injection to 0, 0,
and 1.
iii. Set the Temperature to 263 K.
iv. Set the Flow Rate to 1.7e-4 kg/s.
This is the methanol flow rate for a 30-degree section of
the atomizer. The actual atomizer flow rate is 12 times
this value.
v. Keep the default Start Time of 0 s and set the Stop Time
to 100 s.
For this problem, the injection should begin at t = 0 and
not stop until long after the time period of interest. A
large value for the stop time (e.g., 100 s) will ensure that
the injection will essentially never stop.
vi. Set the Injector Inner Diam. to 0.0035 m, and the Injector
Outer Diam. to 0.0045 m.
vii. Set the Spray Half Angle to -45 deg.
The spray angle is the angle between the liquid sheet tra-
jectory and the injector centerline. In this case, the value
is negative because the sheet is initially converging toward
the centerline.
viii. Set the Relative Velocity to 82.6 m/s.
The relative velocity is the expected relative velocity be-
tween the atomizing air and the liquid sheet.
ix. Keep the default Azimuthal Start Angle of 0 deg and set
the Azimuthal Stop Angle to 30 deg.
This will restrict the injection to the 30-degree section of
the atomizer that is being modeled.

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(g) Define the turbulent dispersion.

i. Click the Turbulent Dispersion tab.
The lower half of the panel will change to show options
for the turbulent dispersion model.
ii. Under Stochastic Tracking, turn on the Stochastic Model
and Random Eddy Lifetime options.
These models will account for the turbulent dispersion of
the droplets.

4. Set the droplet material properties.

Because the secondary atomization models (breakup and coales-
cence) are used, the droplet properties must be set.
Define −→Materials...

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(a) In the Material Type drop-down list, select droplet-particle.

(b) Under Properties, enter a value of 0.0056 kg/m-s for Viscosity.
(c) Under Properties, scroll down and enter a value of 0.0222
N/m for Droplet Surface Tension.
(d) Click Change/Create to accept the change in properties for the
methanol droplet material.

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Step 6: Solution: Unsteady Flow

1. Set the initial condition for the discrete phase.

Resetting the discrete phase model sources will make sure that the
interphase coupling is initialized.
Solve −→ Initialize −→Reset DPM Sources

2. Set the time step parameters.

The selection of the time step is critical for accurate time-dependent
flow predictions.
Solve −→Iterate...

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(a) Set the Time Step Size to 5e-05 s.

(b) Click Apply.

3. Save the transient solution case file (spray2.cas).

File −→ Write −→Case...

4. Calculate a solution for one time step.

Solve −→Iterate...
It is a good idea to do one time step initially so you can check
the position of the atomizer droplets before they are significantly
dispersed.
(a) Set the Number of Time Steps to 1.
(b) Click Iterate.
! You will notice that FLUENT will perform 20 iterations for the
first time step. Since this is the specified Max Iterations per
Time Step, the solution is not yet completely converged. For
a real problem, it is important that you allow the solution to
converge at each time step, so you may need to increase the
Max Iterations per Time Step. The default of 20 is used in this
tutorial to speed up the calculation.

5. Save the new case and data files (spray2.cas and spray2.dat).
File −→ Write −→Case & Data...

6. Display the trajectories of the droplets in the spray injection (Fig-

ure 14.5).
This will allow you to review the location of the atomizer droplets
after just one time step. They should therefore still be near their
initial injection positions.
Display −→Particle Tracks...

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(a) In the Style drop-down list, select point.

(b) Click the Style Attributes... button.
This will open the Path Style Attributes panel.

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(c) Set the Marker Size to 0.25 and click OK.

(d) In the Particle Tracks panel, select Draw Grid under Options.
This will open the Grid Display panel.

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(e) Keep the current display settings and close the panel.
(f) In the Particle Tracks panel, select Particle Variables... and
Particle Diameter in the Color By drop-down list.
This will display the location of the droplets colored by their
diameters.
(g) In the Release From Injections list, select injection-0.
(h) Click Display.
(i) Use your mouse to obtain the view shown in Figure 14.4.

1.35e-04

1.22e-04

1.10e-04

9.79e-05

8.57e-05

7.35e-05

6.13e-05

4.91e-05

3.69e-05

2.46e-05
Y
Z
1.24e-05 X

Particle Traces Colored by Particle Diameter (m) (Time=5.0000e-05) Jul 11, 2001
FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, spe5, rke, unsteady)

Figure 14.5: Particle Tracks for the Spray Injection After 1 Time Step

The air-blast atomizer model assumes that a cylindrical liquid

sheet exits the atomizer, which then disintegrates into liga-
ments and droplets. Appropriately, the model determines that
the droplets should be input into the domain in a ring. The ra-
dius of this disk is determined from the inner and outer radii
of the injector.
Note that the maximum diameter of the droplets is about
10−4 m, or 0.1 mm. This is slightly smaller than the film
height, which makes sense. Recall that the inner diameter

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and outer diameter of the injector are 3.5 mm and 4.5 mm,
respectively. The film height is then 12 (4.5 − 3.5) = 0.5 mm.
The range in the droplet sizes is due to the fact that the air-
blast atomizer automatically uses a droplet distribution.
Also note that the droplets are placed a slight distance away
from the injector. Once the droplets are injected into the do-
main, they can collide/coalesce with other droplets as deter-
mined by the secondary models (breakup and collision). How-
ever, once a droplet has been introduced into the domain, the
air-blast atomizer model no longer affects the droplet.

7. Request 10 more time steps.

Solve −→Iterate...

8. Save the new case and data files (spray3.cas and spray3.dat).

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Step 7: Postprocessing

1. Display the particle trajectories again, to see how the droplets have
dispersed.
Display −→Particle Tracks...

(a) Click Display in the Particle Tracks panel.

(b) Use your mouse to obtain the view shown in Figure 14.6.

2.78e-04

2.52e-04

2.25e-04

1.98e-04

1.72e-04

1.45e-04

1.18e-04

9.18e-05

6.52e-05

3.85e-05
Y
Z
1.19e-05 X

Particle Traces Colored by Particle Diameter (m) (Time=5.5000e-04) Jul 11, 2001
FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, spe5, rke, unsteady)

Figure 14.6: Particle Tracks for the Spray Injection After 11 Time Steps

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2. Create an isosurface of the methanol mass fraction.

Surface −→Iso-Surface...

(a) Select Species... and Mass fraction of ch3oh in the Surface of

Constant lists.
(b) Click on Compute to update the minimum and maximum val-
ues.
(c) Enter 0.001339 in the Iso-Values field.
(d) Enter methanol-mf=0.001339 for the New Surface Name.
(e) Click on Create to create the isosurface.

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3. Display the isosurface you just created (methanol-mf=0.001339).

Display −→Grid...

(a) Select methanol-mf=0.001339 in the Surfaces list.

(b) Click the Colors... button.

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(c) In the Grid Colors panel, select Color By Type.

(d) Scroll down and select surface in the Types list and dark red
in the Colors list.
This will ensure that the isosurface is displayed in red, which
contrasts better with the rest of the grid.
(e) In the Grid Display panel, click Display.
The graphics display will be updated to show the isosurface.

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4. Modify the view to include the entire atomizer.

Display −→Views...

(a) Increase the number of Periodic Repeats to 11.

(b) Click Apply in the Views panel.
(c) In the Grid Display panel, click Display.
The graphics display will be updated to show the entire atom-
izer.
(d) Use your mouse to obtain the view shown in Figure 14.7.

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Y
Z
X

Grid (Time=5.5000e-04) Jul 16, 2001

FLUENT 6.0 (3d, segregated, spe5, rke, unsteady)

Figure 14.7: Full Atomizer Display with Surface of Constant Methanol

Mass Fraction

Summary: In this tutorial, you defined a discrete-phase spray injection

for an air-blast atomizer and calculated a transient solution using
the second-order implicit unsteady formulation. You viewed the
location of methanol droplet particles after they had exited the
atomizer and examined an isosurface of the methanol mass fraction.

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