Evaporation of multicomponent fuel droplets in buoyancy driven convection

In this work, the evaporation process of multicomponent fuel droplets is analyzed, both from
an experimental and numerical point of view. The droplets are hanged on a thin thermocouple
against gravity and evaporated in natural convection regime, following the process by means of
high speed shadowgraphs. The experimental analyses were performed hierarchically, starting
from pure components (n-dodecane and n-hexadecane), then moving to their mixtures. The
numerical modeling is performed with the DropletSMOKE++ code, a comprehensive CFD
framework for the simulation of 3D evaporating droplets under gravity conditions. The
numerical results present a good agreement with the experimental data, especially if compared
with the same cased modeled in microgravity conditions. The difference evaporation rate is
analyzed as well as the different surface temperature, highlighting the important role of internal
and external convection on the evaporation process.