Numerical Simulations of Aluminum Droplet Evaporation in Two Reference Frames

Aluminum powder has been commonly used as the energetic material in solid propellants due to its high energy density. However, in actual combustion scenarios, not all aluminum powder is able to completely burn before reaching the nozzle, owing to the complicated physics of aluminum combustion. Due to this complexity, many studies have relied on analytic solutions instead of directly solving the Navier-Stokes equations. These earlier studies exhibit limitations, such as the inability to explain mass and heat transfer occurring at the interface or simulate 3-D fluid dynamics. In this study, the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method was employed to conduct direct numerical simulations of aluminum droplet evaporation. Subsequently, the developed model was compared and assessed against the evaporation model provided by the Lagrangian solver.