Primary atomization of a turbulent liquid jet in crossflow: a comparison between VOF and FGVT methods

The primary atomization of a turbulent liquid jet in crossflow was investigated using a mathematical, numerical and computational model. A comparison between the standard volume of fluid (VOF) method and the fine grid volume tracking (FGVT) method was reported. The FGVT method advects the interface between two fluids using a finer grid than the employed by the standard VOF method, and according to the literature, it provides a better interface resolution. Simulations were performed using adaptive mesh refinement in a three-dimensional domain subjected to gravitational field using the in-house code MFSim. The flow was modeled using an Eulerian–Lagrangian approach to capture the interface. The interface was tracked initially with VOF or FGVT methods until the initial breakup. Broken off, small-scale nearly spherical drops were transferred into the Lagrangian point particle description. Column breakup and shear breakup modes were observed on the liquid jet. Drops were small as one-hundredth the size of the injector diameter. The model was validated against experimental correlations for the liquid jet column trajectory, and the droplet size distribution was compared to a previous numerical study from the literature. In addition, the breakup mechanisms predicted were qualitatively compared to those in previous reports. The results of the liquid column trajectory from the simulations performed presented low differences with the literature for both methods tested. According to the numerical results obtained from the computational simulations, the liquid column trajectory was well captured and the droplet size distribution was similar to the literature; however, the FGVT method provided higher accuracy compared to VOF method. The two main breakup modes were identified, namely the column breakup with Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities and the surface breakup with the formation of multiple ligaments which later lead to droplet formation. The FGVT method provided a more detailed interface contour and improved the number of droplets converted from the Eulerian to the Lagrangian approach compared to the standard VOF method. On the other hand, the FGVT method presented relatively higher computational costs compared to VOF. Therefore, the FGVT method presented a higher interface quality and allowed a larger number of droplet conversion to the Lagrangian approach compared to the VOF method, even though the simulation run time using VOF was lower than with FGVT.