Experimental Study of the Effect of the Initial Droplet Diameter on the Evaporation Characteristics of Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine Droplets in a Subcritical Environment

Abstract

The evaporation characteristics of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine droplets with different initial diameters in a subcritical environment were experimentally investigated with the temperature–pressure separation technique. The evaporation processes of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine droplets with different initial diameters in this environment have the same general pattern. All the studied droplets exhibit a short transient heating phase and a steady-state evaporation phase obeying d2. Notably, the expansion of the transient heating phase gradually increases with increasing ambient pressure. The change in diameter squared ∆d2max increases from 1.03% at 1 MPa to 12.48% at 5 MPa. Under subcritical conditions, the evaporation rate decreases linearly with decreasing droplet diameter, and the droplet evaporation lifetime increases linearly. Changes in the initial droplet diameter may still have a large effect on droplets smaller than those studied here. When the ambient pressure is not greater than 3 MPa, the change in the steady-state evaporation time for both medium- and large-diameter droplets accounts for more than 70% of the variation in the droplet evaporation lifetime. As the ambient pressure increases to 4 MPa and 5 MPa, the percentage of the change in the transient heating time contributing to the variation in the droplet evaporation lifetime gradually increases to more than 45%.

Keywords

• unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine
• initial droplet size
• droplet evaporation
• evaporation rate
• evaporative lifetime