HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER WITH MULTIPLE PARTICLE INTERACTIONS PART I. DROPLET EVAPORATION

Abstract

A generalized treatment of heat and/or mass transport between an assemblage of particles and a surrounding continuum is presented. The unsteady state diffusive transport is shown to depend on the size and positions of the particles, and the rate processes are found to be radically different from single particle rates because of particle interactions. A three dimensional model has been developed to predict global concentration or temperature distributions by treating the particles as point sources or sinks. The conditions for which particles can be treated as isolated or as interactive members of a group are established, and correction factors are presented from which multiple particle mass transfer rates can be calculated from single isolated particle mass transfer rates. For finite assemblages the correction factors are shown to be in close agreement with results computed previously using the method of images.