Recent advances in hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian description of atomization

Abstract Atomization of liquid fuel is a crucial process to energy utilization. A thorough understanding of the physics of liquid atomization is challenging to acquire but necessary. During the past decades, numerical simulation methods for atomization with interface capturing schemes have been developed rapidly. However, several remaining issues need to be highlighted, such as the minimum size of the droplet to capture, numerical mass defects, and others. Thus, those simulations have been mostly limited to the primary breakup process and cannot capture the huge number of tiny droplets during the secondary breakup process. In recent years, a Eulerian–Lagrangian description of atomization has been introduced for the multi‐scale modelling of its whole process, in which the primary atomization process is treated in the Eulerian framework while the secondary atomization is treated in the Lagrangian framework. This hybrid method has been demonstrated to have many advantages in accuracy and efficiency. Considering its wide applications and contribution to the field, a comprehensive review is made in this work. First, an introduction to the phenomenon of atomization and the development of atomization numerical simulation in recent decades is made. Governing equations in the Eulerian and Lagrangian frameworks are then summarized. This is followed by a discussion of the hybrid combination method, the numerical framework, and its applications in atomization simulations. Last but not least, several relevant issues demanding attention are discussed as well.