Large Eddy Simulation of the spray formation in confinements

Highlights: • Process stability of confined spray processes is affected by the geometric design of the spray confinement. • LES simulations of confined spray flow have been performed successfully. • Clustering processes of droplets is predicted in simulations and validated with experiments. • Criteria for specific coherent gas flow patterns and droplet clustering behaviour are found. -- Abstract: The particle and powder properties produced within spray drying processes are influenced by various unsteady transport phenomena in the dispersed multiphase spray flow in a confined spray chamber. In this context differently scaled spray structures in a confined spray environment have been analyzed in experiments and numerical simulations. The experimental investigations have been carried out with Particle-Image-Velocimetry to determine the velocity of the gas and the discrete phase. Large-Eddy-Simulations have been set up to predict the transient behaviour of the spray process and have given more insight into the sensitivity of the spray flow structures in dependency from the spray chamber design