Numerical Investigation of Spray Impingement Heat Transfer in the Film Boiling Regime

Heat removal by spray impingement is widely used in different industrial processes. A cooling regime of particular interest occurs when the temperature of the cooled surface exceeds the Leidenfrost temperature of the spray. An accurate numerical model of this cooling regime could help to optimise many industrial applications where spray cooling is used, such as cryogenic machining and spray quenching. In this paper, an Eulerian-Lagrangian Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) model designed for spray impingement above the Leidenfrost temperature is proposed. Two different sub-models are implemented to quantify the heat transfer between the droplet and the solid. The heat transfer models are validated through a literature experimental campaign, showing accurate and flexible prediction of heat transfer characteristics across diverse operating conditions, temperature levels, and spray configurations.