Numerical Investigation of Cylindrical Water Droplets Subjected to Air Shock Loading at a High Weber Number
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This work is devoted to the computational investigation of the deformation and breakup of cylindrical water bodies in the high-speed airflow behind incident shock waves. Both single-column and tandem-column configurations in various arrangements were simulated by reproducing the shock/droplet interaction process in a shock-tube device. The calculations were conducted by using a third-party solver recently developed for compressible two-phase flows in the framework of the open source finite volume toolbox OpenFOAM. The numerical approach is based on the use of the volume-of-fluid method to resolve the phase interface, where a particular discretization technique allows us to prevent unphysical instabilities. The numerical scheme makes use of more precise information of the local propagation speeds to maintain a high resolution and a small numerical viscosity. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons of the results with reference experimental and numerical data demonstrated good agreement for the main characteristics of the interaction process in terms of the morphology, dynamics, and breakup of the deforming water bodies.
Source: Fluids
Institution: University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Mechanics
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W4408814004