Numerical simulation of turbulent liquid jet breakup using a sub-grid criterion with industrial application

Disintegration and breakup of turbulent liquid jets with industrial application are numerically investigated using a sub-grid breakup criterion and an Eulerian-Lagrangian coupling. An analytical model for flow instability leading to turbulent breakup is considered to realize the droplet formation near the liquid jet interface, and then numerical simulations using volume of fluid approach (VOF) are carried out to model the global spreading and primary breakup of the turbulent liquid jet. We further present a novel idea to capture the droplet formation for such industrial application by using an Eulerian-Lagrangian hybrid concept. This approach helps to reduce computational costs by using the sub-grid model instead of resolving small liquid structures in finer grid resolutions. A finite volume-based solver is developed within the framework of OpenFOAM to solve 3-D Navier-Stokes equations coupled with VOF equation and presented Eulerian-Lagrangian coupling method. This methodology is tested for simulation of different liquid jets validated against experimental data and showed good agreement. The generated droplets can be used for further analysis of sub-processes like droplet-wall interactions and solidification.