CFD Based Simulation of Binary Droplet Coalescence

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique has been used to simulate the coalescence of binary water droplets. The Volume of Fluid (VOF) approach has been applied for interface tracking. In addition a parametric study has been carried out to investigate the coalescence time as a function of some parameters consisting of the collision velocity, oil viscosity, interfacial tension and off-center collision. The simulation results were validated by comparing with published experimental data. The results revealed that coalescence would be faster with higher collision velocity. Moreover, the larger interfacial tensions and less oil viscosity decrease the coalescence time. Dimensional analysis was used to concentrate the results in the form of a predicting correlation for coalescence time.

Keywords:

CFD , VOF , Coalescence time , Parametric study