Proceedings of the 37th National & 4th International Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power December 16-18,

2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India

FMFP2010 549
Study of Dynamic Break-Up of Capillary Jet Using Level-Set Method

Absar Lakdawala1, Vinesh H Gada1 and Atul Sharma1 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India - 400076 Corresponding author. Phone: 022 2576 7505, Fax: +91 22 2572 6875 Email: atulsharma@iitb.ac.in
Abstract
types of drop formation modes. mode at lower First,

dripping

Capillary jets, created due of interfacial instabil- ce and no jet is formed; second, jetting mode ity in two-uid system under the eect of surface at intermediate range of Vi , a jet is formed up tension, are widely encountered in nature. In the to a certain streamwise direction and then breaks present work, dynamic breakup of a axisymmet- into drops; and third, atomization mode at higher ric liquid jet injected vertically into another im- Vi , where many non-uniform droplets are formed miscible liquid is investigated numerically at var- near the orice. The rst (second) transition ious injection velocity, for four dierent disperse from rst (second) to second (third) mode ocuids with water as continuous uid. For this curs at a certain critical value of the injection purpose, an in house Level Set (LS) methodology velocity called as jetting (atomization) velocity, based code is used. The two uid ow simulation Vi,jet (Vi,a ). After the second transition, another methodology uses nite volume method for solu- transition from 2-D axisymmetric to 3D ow oction of Navier-Stokes and nite dierence method curs. With increasing Vi , it is found that there for solution of LS equations. An excellent agree- is a monotonic increase (decrease) in the dropment is found between the present simulation and formation/jet-breakup length, L, in the 2-D (3-D) a published theoretical and experimental work for ow regime. The ow transitions depend on the detached bubble diameter. Furthermore, dierent delicate balance among buoyancy, inertia, viscous breakup modes reported in the published experi- and interfacial tension force which further depend mental results are captured in the present sim- upon various uid and ow properties. The forulations. The results show a greater sensitivity mation of liquid jet injected into another immisciof jet length and drop diameter to the Reynolds ble liquid and the breakup of the jet into droplet number. However, viscosity ratio has negligible is of fundamental importance in many industrial eects on breakup dynamics. The results shows liquid-liquid contact processes. The breakup of that the transition from dripping mode to jetting the jet increases the interfacial area, hence enmode takes place at Weber number 2.2. hancing heat and/or mass transfer, and someKeywords:
Capillary Jet, Drop Dynamics, times chemical reactions. There are numerous analytical [1-6], experiLevel Set Method. mental [5-11] and numerical [12-17] studies on the drop formation in the liquid-liquid system; mainly to predict the break-up length and the size of the droplet. Mansour and Lundgren [12] used Boundary Element Method (BEM) to solve breakup of liquid jet into air; limited to inviscid

Vi , the drop forms close to the ori-

Introduction
Vi ,
there are three

Injection of a liquid, from an orice, in another immiscible liquid results in drop formation. With increasing injection velocity,

and irrotational uid conditions which are inherent characteristics of BEM. Homma et al. duced in 6 dierent liquid-liquid systems. UsThe ing front tracking method, [13] simulated jet promost popular interface capturing techniques are the Volume of Fluid (VOF) [18] and the Level Set (LS) Method [19], or combinations of these two (CLSVOF). Using VOF method, Richards et al. [14, 15] and Xiaoguang [16]carried out direct numerical simulations for the formation of an axisymmetric jet and its breakup into droplets in liquidliquid systems. Using CLSVOF method, Chakraborty et al. [17] simulated bubble detachment from submerged orice in quiescent liquid under normal and reduced gravity. problem. The objective of the present work is to test the capability of LS method for the simulation of drop formation process. Furthermore, the objective is to study the eect of Reynolds number and viscosity ratio, on the drop diameter and the jet break-up length, for four dierent liquidliquid systems. The rest of the paper is orgaThe mathematiSecnized as follows: the physical description of the problem is done in Section 2. cal formulation and numerical methodology are discussed in Section 3 and 4, respectively. tion 5 discusses the results obtained from gridindependence and code-validation study. Finally, the results obtained and conclusions drawn from the present work are discussed in Section 6 and 7, respectively. the non-dimensional velocity scale, is the average injection velocity. The gure also shows the formation of an an axisymmetric jet and its breakup into droplets; with the jet length represented as Using LS Figure 1: Liquid-Liquid drop-formation conguration. method, no such work is found for the present

Lj .

Both the uids are considered incompressible

and immiscible. The continuous uid as the reference uid.

is taken

In the present study, ow is assumed to be axisymmetric. Figure 1 shows the computational domain consisting of tank-wall, tank-axis, inlet

= 0, V = 0), symmetric (U = 0,V /R = 0), inow (U = 0, V = Vi )and outow ( 2 U/Z 2 = 0, 2 V /Z 2 = 0)

boundary conditions are used, respectively.

and outlet; where no-slip (U

Physical and Mathematical 3 Mathematical Formulation Description of the Problem In case of single-phase ow, Navier-Stokes equations alone are solved to obtain velocity, pressure ow, in addition to Navier-Stokes equations, the governing equation of the interface is solved. For the present work, Level Set (LS) method [19] is used to model the interface. Although origins of the LS method lie in mathematical sources, physical interpretation of various functions used in LS method and conservation law based derivation of LS governing equation and continuity equation for two-phase ow simulation is presented in our and temperature. However, in case of two-phase

The present simulations are done for the problem shown in Figure 1. It shows an axisymmetric view of a stationary cylindrical tank of length and diameter

D2 = 10

containing uid 1 (wa-

ter); with a uid 2 injected vertically upwards from a circular hole (orice) at the bottom of the tank. The diameter of the orice,

D1 = 1,

is

taken as the non-dimensional length scale.

The

uid is injected with a fully-developed velocity 2 prole: Vi = 2Vi (14R1 ) where Vi , considered as 2

recent work Gada and Sharma [20].

Momentum Conservation Equation:

(m U ) + 1 (2m D) Re

3.1

Level Set Method

The Level Set interface representation is based upon concept of implicit surfaces, wherein a Level Set function

P+
where

m U U = 1 F m2 + W e () n j r
(3)

()

is dened in a domain having a

rate

xed value at the interface. LS function is taken as a signed normal distance function measured from the interface such that it has negative values in uid 2 and positive values in uid 1 and the interface is dened at LS function value of zero. The LS eld is smooth leading to accurate calculation of interface normal and curvature and at any instant of time, the exact interface position is determined by locating the zero Level Set. Additionally, LS method avoids logical diculties of interface tracking as no special treatment is needed to capture breakup/merging of uid bodies.

0.5

U+

of deformation tensor, D T U . Furthermore, m and

= m

are the mean non-dimensional density and viscosity, respectively; calculated as

m = H () + (1 H ()) m = H () + (1 H ()) H () = 0 H () = 1
if if

(4)

where the Heaviside function is calculated as

< 0 > 0.

or

H () = 0.5

if

= 0

or

However, while solving the

Navier-Stokes equations, numerical instabilities arise if the step change in Heaviside function is used to calculate the uid properties at cell/face centers. Thus, the interface of nite thickness,

2
3.2 Single Field Formulation
In the present work, the Navier-Stokes equations are coupled with LS method by invoking the single eld formulation; wherein a single velocity and pressure eld is dened for both the uids. Constant material properties are taken, but not equal for each phase i.e. the bulk uids are incompressible. Moreover, the surface tension force at interface is modeled as volumetric source term in the momentum equation; non zero only at the interface. The surface tension coecient is assumed to be constant and its tangential variation along the interface is neglected. It is assumed that interface is thin and mass-less with no-slip in tangential velocity. The non-dimensional single eld governing equations for simulation of two-phase ow are:

is considered, dened as

< <

, where

is the half thickness of interface and is taken as a factor of grid spacing. For the present work the interface thickness is taken as Heaviside function [19] is used

2 = 3x.

To

avoid the step change in properties, a smoothened

H () =

+ 2

1 + sin 0
1 2

if > if || if <
(3)),

In the momentum equation (Eq.

n =

/ | |

and

are the interface

unit normal vector and curvature, respectively. Furthermore, in the momentum equations, from the smoothened Heaviside function as

()

is smoothened Dirac delta function determined

Volume Equation:

Conservation

(Continuity)
(1)

() =

dH () d

1 2

1 2

cos 0

if || otherwise

U =0

Note that, the interface thickness will be negligible on a fairly ne grid. For the above equations, the non dimensional variables are expressed as

Mass Conservation (Level-Set Advection) Equation:

+U

=0

(2)

U=
3

r z tvi p u , R= ,Z= ,= ,P = vi D1 D1 D1 1 vi 2

the use of uniform stencil everywhere in the

=
where

2 2 ,= 1 1

domain while implementing higher order advection schemes such as Essentially Non-Oscillatory (ENO) and Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO). A Finite Volume Method (FVM) semi-explicit pressure projection method is used to solve the Navier-Stokes equations. The continuity equation is treated implicitly whereas the advection, diusion and all body forces in momentum equation are treated explicitly. The advection and diusion terms in momentum equation are disnd cretized using 2 order TVD Lin-Lin and central dierence scheme, respectively. The density, viscosity and mass ux are calculated at LS nodes rst, and their values are interpolated to

D1

and

vi

are the oriface-diameter and

mean velocity of the jet at inlet, respectively. The non-dimensional governing parameters are the Reynolds number , Weber number

(Re), Froude number (F r) (W e) are dened as

vi 1 vi D1 , Fr = , Re = 1 gD1 1 vi D1 2
Reini-

We =
3.3

Subsidiary Equation : tialization

required locations.

Furthermore, since a semi-

explicit method is used, the time step size calculation is based on CFL, grid Fourier number and capillary time step restriction. LS advection equation is solved explicitly and it is discretized using Finite Dierence Method rd th (FDM) with 3 order Runge-Kutta and 5 order upwind WENO scheme for temporal and spatial terms, respectively. The reinitialization equation rd is solved using 3 order ENO scheme.

The LS eld obtained after solving the advection equation (Eq. (2)), in general, will not remain For accurate a normal distance function eld.

calculation of the smoothened Heaviside function and delta function, it is necessary to maintain the constant width of the diused interface along the interface at all times, this is ensured by reinitializing the advected Level Set function eld to signed normal distance function eld without altering the location of interface obtained after advection step. In the present work, a constraint based PDE reinitialization procedure Sussman et al. [22] is used.

5
uid

Results and Discussion

1
as water, which is taken as the refer-

The present study is done for the continuous ence uid; whereas four dierent dispersed uids, shown in Table 1, are considered for the present non-dimensional study. Note that all the dispersed uids are less-dense and more-viscous (except heptane) than the continuous uid.

Numerical Methodology

The present work uses an inhouse code, whose numerical methodology is discussed in detail by Gada and Sharma[21]. The governing equations are discretized on a Cartesian MAC-type staggered grid arrangement to avoid pressure velocity decoupling. Pressure is located at the centroid of CVs (known as cell/CV center) and the cell centers for velocity components are staggered with u and v velocity located on vertical and horizontal face centers of pressure CVs, respectively. The Level Set function grid point is also staggered with respect to other grid points and is located at the vertices of pressure CVs enabling

10 40

10 50, 10 30 and 5.2 17 cm/s for the system number 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively; the numerical study is done for various Re and W e
By varying the injection velocity from and

shown in 2. Thus, eighteen combinations of the non-dimensional numbers are simulated for the non-dimensional orice diameter of that the

D1 = 1.

Note

Re

and

We

in the table are obtained

by considering the dimensional orice diameter

d1 = 2.54mm,

to benchmark the present results

for heptane-water system.

Table 1:

Fluid properties for the two-uid sys-

5.1

Domain-Size-Independence and Grid-Independence Study

tem used in the present work. Continuous uid 3 is taken as water with 1 = 996 kg/m and 1 =

0.958mP a.s
Sys. No. Dispersed Fluid

Initial simulation were carried out for domain-size independence study. and A domain size of

(mN/m)
44.8

= 2 /1
0.825

= 2 /1
7

L = 30,50 and 75 (for Re 700 and Re > 700, respectively)

R2 = 5 Re = 500, 500 <

are found

1.

70% paran oil 30% Heptane

sucient for the domain-size independent results Grid-independence study is done for heptanewater system at Re = 254.72, W e = 0.67, F r = 0.6335, = 0.4102 and = 0.6857 (Case no. 4 in Table2). On a domain size of 5 30, uniform grid size of 32 192 , 64 384, 128 768 and 256 1536 are considered. For the last two nest grids, negligible dierence in the temporal variation of jet length and instantaneous interface shape is seen in Figure 2(a) and (b), respectively. Thus, a uniform grid size of widthR

2.

80% paran oil 20% Heptane

45.4

0.846

16.383

3.

90% paran oil 10% Heptane

44.4

0.868

36.848

128 768

with cell

= Z = 5/128

is considered sucient

4.

Heptane

36.2

0.686

0.410

ne for the grid-independent results and is used in further simulation.

5.2

Code-Validation Study

Figure 3 shows a comparison of drop diameter, Table 2: Various non-dimensional governing parameters considered in the present study. Case No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. Sys. No. Velocity obtained by present simulation with theoreticalmodel and experimental results of Miester and Scheele [5]; for the Heptane - Water system (System no 4 in Table 1). The gure also shows an 254.72 509.44 764.15 1018.87 1273.59 254.72 509.44 764.15 1018.87 254.72 509.44 764.15 132.45 203.77 254.72 331.13 394.30 433.02 0.54 2.18 4.9 8.72 13.62 0.54 2.15 4.84 8.6 0.55 2.2 4.95 0.18 0.43 0.67 1.14 1.62 1.95 error-bar of

Re

We

cm/s
10 20 30 40 50 10 20 30 40 10 20 30 5.2 8 10 13 15.48 17

1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4

5%

for the experimental results; For the drop deformed

with excellent agreement between the present and the published results.. from the spherical shape, the drop diameter is calculated as the mean of major and minor diameter of the drop, which is expected to yield an error of less than

5%

of drop volume if the diam-

eter ratio is less than

1.7

[15].

5.3

Qualitative Results

As an injection velocity of

5, 20 , 30 and 40 cm/s 4, 3, 2 and 1, respec-

various breakup modes of the drop is seen in Figure 5(a)-(d) for uid-system tively. With increasing velocity, transition from dripping (4 (a)) to jetting (4 (b)-(d)) modes is seen in the time dependent motion of the interface. In the jetting mode, the drop which are detached periodically (from the jet) are of uni-

form and non-uniform size, seen in Figure4(b)

5 4 3

and (c) respectively.

The detached drop in the

frame number 5 as compared to frame 4 of the Figure 4(d) is of smaller size, indicating that the drop losses a satellite-drop which merges with the jet. Multiple-node breakup identied experimentally by Meister and Scheele [5] is seen in the gures for jetting mode. It is found that the dripping mode appears
32 x 192 64 x 384 128 x 768 256 x 1536

Lj
2 1 0 (a) 0

when the Weber number is low (here at

We =

0.18); interfacial tension is dominant over inertial

20
force which causes the jet end to form a big spherical bulb. At higher At intermediate

10

15

W e, a jet is formed as the inthe jet breaks up

ertial force dominates over surface tension force.

W e (= 2.2),

into uniform droplets whose size is almost equivalent to the volume between the nodes of the fastest growing capillary wave. For

W e 4.2,

the eect of the inertial force begins to contribute further to the instability of the jet, resulting in non-uniform droplets and merging of drop with the jet.

256 x 1536

128 x 768

(b)

= 0.16

= 0.32

= 0.51

5.4

Quantitative Results

Figure 5 shows the eects of Reynolds number and viscosity ratio on drop diameter breakup length

Figure 2: Grid renement test for (a) jet length and (b) shape of the jet and droplet; at Re=254, We=0.67,

(Dd )

and

(l) for dierent two-uid systems.

= 0.41023, = 0.68574.

The results in the dripping (jetting) mode are shown by unlled (lled) symbols in the gure. With increasing

Re,

Figure 5(a) shows that the

2.7
Present Results MS Model [5] MS Experimental [5]

drop diameter increases in the dripping mode (except for the

70% Paran oil 30% Heptane - Water

system) and decreases in the jetting mode; with a negligible change for the heptane-water system. This is due to the dominance of viscous force over inertia force for the dripping mode and vice-versa for the jetting mode. Figure 5(c) shows increase in the jet break-up length with increasing

2.5

Dd
2.3

Re.

This is because higher Reynolds number means higher inertia force, which helps the formation of

2.1 2.5

7.5

10 12.5 15 17.5

jet and the mode shifts from dripping to jetting. With increasing viscosity ratio, Figure 5(b) shows an increase in the drop diameter with a slight drop at higher

V (cm/s)
Figure 3: Comparison of drop diameter obtained by present simulation with MS theoretical and experimental results [5]. Note that the error bar corresponds to

for the

Re

correspond-

ing to the dripping mode.

Whereas for the jet-

5%

of the experimental results.

ting mode, shown by lled symbol in the gure, there is negligible change in drop diameter with

4.5
70% Paraffin oil 30% Heptane 80% Paraffin oil 20% Heptane 90% Paraffin oil 10% Heptane Heptane

4.5 Re = 254 Re = 509 Re = 764

3.5

3.5

Dd

Dd
3 2.5 2 0

(a)

2.5

(a)

2 100

400

700

1000

1300

10

Re

(b)
14 12 10

20

30

40

22

18

Lj, break

(b) (b)

Lj, break

14

8 6

10

4 2 0

(c)

2 100

400

700

1000

1300

10

Re

(d)

20

30

40

Figure 5: Eect of (a,c)

Re and (b,d) viscosity ra-

(c)

tio on (a,b) drop diameter and (c,d) jet break-up length. Note that the unlled (lled) symbol corresponds to dripping (jetting) mode. The motion of interface in dripping mode Re=132, We=0.18,

= 0.41,
(d)

and

= 0.68

increasing for

Figure 5(d) shows negligible change when

in jet breakup length with increasing

Re = 509

increases from

, except 0.4 to 7.

6
Figure 4: Temporal variation of the interface: (a) dripping (Heptane-Water system at

Conclusion

Re=132.45, W e=0.18, = 0.41, and = 0.68), (b) jetting with uniform droplets (90% Paran oil 10% Heptane - Water system at Re=509.44, W e=2.2, = 36.84, and = 0.8684), (c) jetting with non-uniform droplets (70% Paran oil 30% Heptane - Water system at Re=764.15, W e=4.84, = 7, and = 0.8253); and (d) jetting with a
satellite drop from the parent drop merging with the jet (80% Paran oil

Level set method based simulation of the drop breakup problem is done for the rst time; using an inhouse code on a staggered grid. It shows an excellent agreement with the published theoretical and experimental results, for the drop diameter. The study is done for four dierent dispersed uid and water as the continuous uid. ent breakup modes: Dierdripping, jetting with uni-

form drop, jetting with non uniform drop, jetting with nonuniform drop and merging; reported in the published experimental results are captured in the present simulations. The eect of Reynolds number and viscosity ratio on the drop diameter and jet break-up length is studied. It is shown that a full numerical simulation such as the one employed in the present work is necessary to capture the physics involved under conditions corre-

20% Heptane -Water system atRe=1018.87,W e=8.72, = 16.38, and = 0.8463).

sponding to inlet velocities above jet formation.

[11] Milosevic I. N., Longmire E. K., 2002. Pincho modes and satellite formation in liquid liquid jet systems. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 28, 18531869. [12] Mansour N. N., Lundgren T. S., 1990.

References
[1] Rayleigh J. W. S., 1879. On the instability of jets. Proceeding of London Mathamatical Society 10, 4-13. [2] Tomotika S., 1935. On the instability of a cylindrical thread of a viscous liquid surrounded by another viscous uid. Proceeding of the Royal Scoiety of Lundon 150, 322-337. [3] Zhang W. W., Lister J. R., 1999. Similarity solutions for capillary pinch-o in uids of diering viscosity. Physical Review Letters 83, 11511154. [4] Richards J. R., Beris A. N., Lenho A. M., 1993. Steady laminar ow of liquidliquid jets at high Reynolds numbers. Physics of Fluids A 5, 17031717. [5] Meister, B.J., Scheele, G.F., 1969. Drop

Satellite formation in capillary jet breakup. Physics of Fluids A 2, 1141. [13] Homma S., Koga J., Matsumoto S., Song M., Tryggvason G., 2006. Breakup mode of an axisymmetric liquid jet injected into another immiscible liquid. Chem. Eng. Sci. 61, 39863996. [14] Richards J. R., Lenho A. M., Beris A. N., 1994. Dynamic breakup of liquidliquid jets. Physics of Fluids 6, 26402655. [15] Richards J. R., Beris A. N., Lenho A. M., 1995. Drop formation in liquidliquid systems before and after jetting. Physics of Fluids 7, 26172630.

formation from cylindrical jets in immiscible liquid systems. A.I.Ch.E. Journal 15, 700706. [6] Meister, B.J., Scheele, G.F., 1969. Prediction of jet length in immiscible liquid systems. A.I.Ch.E. Journal 15, 689699. [7] Kitamura Y., Mishima H., Takahashi T., 1982. Stability of jets in liquidliquid systems. Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering 60, 723731. [8] Cohen I., Brenner M. P., Eggers J., Nagel S. R., 1999. Two uid drop snap-o problem: experiments and theory. Physical Review Letters 83, 11471150. [9] Longmire E. K., Norman T. L., Gefroh D. L., 2001. Dynamics of pinch-o in liquid liquid jets with surface tension. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 27, 17351752. [10] Webster D. R., Longmire E. K., 2001. Jet pinch-o and drop formation in immiscible liquidliquid systems. Experiments in Fluids 30, 4756.

[16] Xiaoguang Z., 1999. Dynamics of drop formation in viscous ows. Chem. Eng. Sci. 54, 17591774. [17] Chakraborty I., Ray B., Biswas G., Durst F., Sharma A., Ghoshdastidar P. S. 2009. Computational investigation on bubble detachment from submerged orice in quiescent liquid under normal and reduced gravity. Physics of Fluid 21, 062103. [18] Hirt C. W., Nichols B. D., 1981. Volume of uid (VOF) method for the dynamics of free boundaries. Journal of Computational Physics 39, 201225. [19] Sussman M., Smereka P., Osher S., 1994. A level set approach for computing solutions to incompressible two-phase ow. Journal of Computational Physics. 114, 146. [20] Gada V. H., Sharma A., 2009, On derivation and physical-interpretation of level set method based equations for two-phase ow simulations, Numer. Heat Transfer B 56 (2009) 307-322.

[21] Gada V. H., Sharma A., A Novel Dual-Grid Level-Set Method for Computational-Multi-

communicated to Journal of Computational Physics.

Fluid-Dynamics Simulation,

[22] M. Sussman, E. Fatemi, P. Semereka, S. Osher, An improved level set method for incompressible two-phase ows, Computers and Fluids 27 (1998) 663-680.