On the interactions between a propagating shock wave and evaporating water droplets

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to analyze how shock waves interact with evaporating water droplets, revealing effects on shock attenuation, droplet evaporation, and pressure dynamics in two-phase flows.

Contribution

It provides new insights into shock-droplet interactions by considering two-way coupling and a range of parameters in a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian framework.

Findings

Shock attenuation depends on droplet volume fraction and Mach number.

Recompression occurs under certain conditions and is sensitive to droplet loading.

Pressure recovery and loss are influenced by droplet evaporation and shock dynamics.

Abstract

One-dimensional numerical simulations based on hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian approach are performed to investigate the interactions between propagating shock waves and dispersed evaporating water droplets in two-phase gas-droplet flows. Two-way coupling for interphase exchanges of mass, momentum and energy is adopted. Parametric study on shock attenuation, droplet evaporation, motion and heating is conducted, through considering various initial droplet diameters (5-20 {\mu}m), number densities (2.5 x 1011 - 2 x 1012 1/m3) and incident shock Mach numbers (1.17-1.9). It is found that the leading shock may be attenuated to sonic wave and even subsonic wave when droplet volume fraction is large and/or incident shock Mach number is low. Attenuation in both strength and propagation speed of the leading shock is mainly caused by momentum transfer to the droplets that interact at the shock front. Total pressure recovery is observed in the evaporation region, whereas pressure loss results from shock compression, droplet drag and pressure gradient force behind the shock front. Recompression of the region between the leading shock and two-phase contact surface is observed when the following compression wave is supersonic. After a critical point, this region gets stable in width and interphase exchanges in mass, momentum, and energy. However, the recompression phenomenon is sensitive to droplet volume fraction and may vanish with high droplet loading. For an incident shock Mach number of 1.6, recompression only occurs when the initial droplet volume fraction is below 3.28 x 10-5.