A Legendre-spectral element method for flow and heat transfer about an accelerating droplet
The problem of flow and heat transfer associated with a spherical droplet accelerated from rest under gravitational force is studied using a Legendre-spectral element method in conjunction with a mixed time integration procedure to advance the solution in time. An influence matrix technique that exploits the superposition principle is adapted to resolve the lack of vorticity boundary conditions and to decouple the equations from the interfacial couplings. The computed flow and temperature fields, the drag coefficient, the Nusselt number, and the interfacial velocity and vorticity are presented for a drop moving vertically in a quiescent gas of infinite extent to illustrate the evolution of the flow and temperature fields. Comparison of the predicted drag coefficient and the Nusselt number against previous numerical and experimental results indicate good agreement. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
legendre-spectral element method droplet vorticity