Heat transfer of micro-droplet during free fall in drop tube

To explore the heat transfer of micro-droplet during free fall in the drop tube, the falling velocity and microgravity level are calculated. The Newtonian heat transfer formulation is coupled with the classical heat conduction equation to predict the heat transfer process within micro-droplet. Based on the numerical solution by finite difference method with implicit Euler scheme, the temporal evolution of thermal information inside micro-droplet is obtained including the temperature distribution, cooling rate, temperature difference and gradient. To quantitatively reveal the mechanism how the various factors affect the heat transfer of micro-droplet, the effects of physical properties of liquid metal and cooling gas as well as the micro-droplet size are studied. As the important indicators of heat transfer process, the cooling rate and temperature difference are acquired to systematically investigate the relationship between thermophysical properties and heat transfer process of different metallic micro-droplets.