SEPARATION OF THERMAL BOUNDARY LAYER FROM A LEVITATING DROPLET AND ITS EVAPORATION RATE

Abstract

 It has been pointed out that air-sea heat flux model is possible to be improved by accounting for the effect of the spray evaporation due to large contribution of latent heat of sea spray to the air-sea heat transport. This study conducted an image experiment to measure the density as well as refractive index of the air around a droplet levitating in an air flow. The air density around an evaporating droplet cooled by the latent heat and advected by the air flow was successfully visualized using the background oriented schlieren technique. It was confirmed that thinning of the thermal boundary layer of a droplet corresponds to the acceleration of the spray evaporation.