New Approach of Gas–Liquid Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations for the Study of Minimum Quantity Cooling With Airblast Plain Jet Injectors

Abstract

Due to the complexity of multiphase flows, they are often studied with numerical simulations. These simulations must be validated with experimental results. This paper introduces a new approach to initialize the continuous phase of gas–liquid flows generated by airblast nozzles for microlubrication applications with a recently modified commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FINEâ„¢/Open. Microlubrication is a technology used in metal machining where the coolant flow rate is lower than with conventional flood cooling. In this paper, singlephase gas and twophase liquid–gas flows are studied. The continuous phase is simulated using Reynoldsaveraged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations coupled with a k–خµ turbulence model and the dispersed phase is simulated using a Lagrangian method. To validate these simulations, particle image velocimetry (PIV) and particle dynamics analysis (PDA) measurements have been performed. This study illustrates the possibility of performing complex twophase simulations with the help of singlephase studies to initialize the continuous phase of the flow (i.e., the gas). The singlephase flow also helps in estimating the magnitudes of the droplet velocities.