The Maximum Entropy Formalism and the Prediction of Liquid Spray Drop-Size Distribution

Abstract

The efficiency of any application involving a liquid spray is known to be highly dependent on the spray characteristics, and mainly, on the drop-diameter distribution. There is therefore a crucial need of models allowing the prediction of this distribution. However, atomization processes are partially known and so far a universal model is not available. For almost thirty years, models based on the Maximum Entropy Formalism have been proposed to fulfill this task. This paper presents a review of these models emphasizing their similarities and differences, and discusses expectations of the use of this formalism to model spray drop-size distribution