In this DOE-funded project led by GTI, the partners are working together to further the sustainable use of fossil energy (FE) resources and reduce the risk and cost of advanced technologies.

A Desktop Engineering article explains how “Our understanding of flow separation has just taken a big leap forward.”

The ATOMIC project is focused on developing Computational Fluid Dynamics methods to model the atomization of sprays generated by engine fuel injection systems. The atomization process is critical to the efficiency and emissions of both diesel and gasoline engines.

In 1904, Ludwig Prandtl derived the exact mathematical conditions for flow separation to occur. But his work had two major restrictions: first, it applied only to steady flows, such as those around a car moving at a constant low speed. Second, it only applied to idealized two-dimensional flows.

Understanding the motion of fluids is the basis for a tremendous amount of engineering and technology in contemporary life. Planes fly and ships sail because scientists understand the rules of how fluids like water and air behave under varying conditions.

Density functional theory, however, describes the multicomponent multiphase mixture continuously without density jumps at interfacial surfaces. This is achieved by the introduction into the Helmholz energy, or into the entropy, square component density gradient terms. As a result the hydrodynamics of multiphase mixtures is described in a unified way meaning the governing system of equations is the same at any point in space.