The Evaporation Rate of Liquid Droplets in a Hot Gas

Author: Hartwig, Frederic William

Year: 1952

Degree: Engineer's thesis

Advisors: Penner, Stanford S.; Tsien, Hsue Shen

Committee Member: Unknown, Unknown

Option: Aeronautics

DOI: 10.7907/NY38-9J57

Abstract

Calculations have been carried out in order to determine the rate of evaporation of a liquid droplet surrounded by hot gases. The present study represents an extension of earlier work by Penner on evaporation rates for isothermal droplets. Thus, allowance was made for temperature gradients withing the droplet (a) by considering a droplet composed of an isothermal core and an isothermal shell and (b) by utilizing the actual termperature profile in the droplet as established as the result of a heat balance between thermal conduction within the droplet, convective heat transfer to the droplet, and cooling produced by evaporation at the droplet surface.

The results obtained for the shell model of the evaporating droplet were found to be in satisfactory agreement with the known data for evaporations of isothermal droplets, independently of the thickness chosen for the isothermal shells. On the other hand, the laborious conduction solution led to somewhat different results. The origin of the detailed deviations is not clear at this time and requires additional study.

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