Spray evolution in icing wind tunnels

Abstract The trajectories and temperature histories of small water droplets as they pass through an axisymmetric wind tunnel contraction into the test section have been estimated. Only the smallest droplets (10 μm diameter) remain in mechanical and thermodynamical equilibrium with the airstream. The larger droplets are sorted in the contraction due to gravity and inertia effects, so that not only are these droplets not in equilibrium with the airstream, but also the resulting water mass and temperature distributions in the test section are non-uniform.