Numerical simulation and optimization of humidity field in artificially environmental chamber

An efficient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, FLUENT, was employed for the simulation of evaporation process of water droplets in an artificially created environmental chamber with the discrete model. The flow and humidity fields in the chamber were investigated individually under various droplet diameter, inlet temperature and velocity. In the discrete model, the simulations of coupling particles with air were conducted using Lagrangian equation. The calculated results indicate that humidity meliorates with decreasing inlet temperature and droplet diameter. Moreover, the stabilizing time of the humidity field in the chamber is dependent on the inlet velocity. The humidity field becomes steady more easily with the increasing inlet velocity. In addition, in the chamber the optimal droplet diameter is 10 μm at an inlet temperature of 320 K and a velocity of 18 m/s, and the optimal inlet velocity is 18 m/s at an inlet temperature of 320 K for a droplet diameter of 2 μm.