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Droplet Collision

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Handbook of Atomization and Sprays

Abstract

We put together the state of knowledge on binary collisional interactions of droplets in a gaseous environment. Phenomena observed experimentally after drop collisions, such as coalescence, bouncing, reflexive separation and stretching separation, are discussed. Collisions of drops of the same liquid and of different – miscible or immiscible – liquids, as well as collisions of drops of equal and different size are addressed. Collisions of drops of immiscible liquids may lead to an unstable interaction which is not observed with drops of equal or miscible liquids. Regimes characterized by the various phenomena are depicted in nomograms of the Weber number and the non-dimensional impact parameter. The state-of-the-art in the simulation of binary droplet collisions is reviewed. Overall three different methods are represented in the literature on these simulations. We discuss models derived from numerical simulations and from experiments, which are presently in use for simulations of spray flows to account for the influence of collisional interactions of the spray droplets on the drop size spectrum of the spray.

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Brenn, G. (2011). Droplet Collision. In: Ashgriz, N. (eds) Handbook of Atomization and Sprays. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7264-4_7

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