• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.127-134
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• 2021

Fire sprinkler initial spray was analyzed by Large eddy simulation (LES) and Volume of Fluid (VoF) integrated method. The IsoAdvector geometric VoF was used to identify the liquid-gas interface clearly even with the large Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy number. To reduce the computational costs, sector meshes and Adaptive Mesh Refinement up to level 3 were used. Base mesh size was 1 mm, which is roughly equivalent to the initial sprinkler droplet. Top surface radius of boss and deflector size were modified to investigate the effects of sprinkler head design on primary breakup process. When top surface radius of boss was increased, vertical liquid sheet was formed. This phenomenon reduced the sheet breakup radius, sheet thickness and velocity. Due to reduced liquid sheet thickness, a large amount of ligaments was created from the liquid sheet. As a result, there was a dramatic decrease in volume per surface area, indicating an increase in breakup process. Spray pattern viewed in radial direction also changed when top surface radius of boss increased. When top surface radius of boss was increased, a T-shaped pattern was observed while a V-shaped pattern was observed in all other cases. When the deflector size increases, the spray pattern remains V-shaped, even if the top surface radius of boss increased. Further studies on promoting atomization of the water supplied to the lower part of the sprinkler head in the T-shape pattern should be conducted.