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Heat transfer rates to simulated and freely suspended liquid droplets were measured in an atmospheric hot air tunnel. The experiments were limited to water, methanol, and heptane droplets in a Reynolds number range of 25 to 2000, and a mass transfer number range of 0.07 to 2.79. The present experimental data together with data by others can best be correlated by Nuf(1+Bf).7 = 2 + 0.57 ReM1/2 Prf1/3, where properties are evaluated at film conditions except for the density in the Reynolds number which is the free-stream density. Thus the data shows that at higher temperatures, evaporation reduces heat transfer rates directly by a factor of (1 + Bf).7. Indirectly, evaporation affects heat transfer rates through the changes in both the composition and temperature of the surrounding gaseous medium.

Numerical solutions for high-temperature air flowing past water and methanol droplets and solid spheres, and superheated steam flowing past water droplets were obtained in the Reynolds number range of 10 to 100. The coupled momentum, energy, and specie continuity equations of variable thermophysical properties were solved using finite difference techniques. The numerical results of heat transfer and total drag agree well with existing experimental data. Mass transfer decreases friction drag significantly but at the same time increases pressure drag by almost an equal amount. The net effect is that the standard drag curve for solid spheres can be used for evaporating droplets provided the density is the free stream density and the viscosity of the vapor mixture is evaluated at an appropriate reference temperature and concentration. Both the mass efflux and variable properties decrease heat transfer rates to the droplets.

A finite volume numerical technique has been used to model the evaporation of an n-heptane droplet with an initial Reynolds number of 100 in air at 800 K, 1 atm. The effects of variable thermophysical properties, liquid phase motion and heating, and transient variations in droplet size and velocity are included in the analysis. With appropriate corrections for the effects of variable properties and liquid phase heating, quasi-steady correlations are shown to predict accurately the transient histories of the drag coefficient and Nusselt and Sherwood numbers. For the case investigated here, the transient effects of importance were the variation in droplet velocity, the decline in the liquid phase velocities, and the rise in the droplet surface and volume average temperatures. In spite of the transient rise in the droplet temperature, the nature of the liquid phase heating, as characterised by the liquid Nusselt number, was found to remain constant during most of the droplet lifetime.

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