Naoki Harada et al.

/International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112

Research Paper 20154066

Preliminary, One-Way Coupled, Rain-Droplets/Airflow Simulations over

Automobile

Naoki Harada 1) Keiichi Kitamura 2) Yasuhiko Okutsu 3) Naoki Hamamoto 4)

Koichi Mori 5) Yoshiaki Nakamura 6)

1) 2) 5) 6) Nagoya University, Graduate School of Engineering, 1 Furocho, Chikusa, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan
2) Currently at Yokohama National University, Graduate School of Engineering,
79-5 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan (E-mail: kitamura@ynu.ac.jp)
3)4) Mitsubishi Motors Corp., 1 Nakashinkiri, Hashimecho, Okazaki, Aichi 444-8501, Japan
6) Currently at Chubu University, Graduate School of Engineering, 1200 Matsumotocho, Kasugai, Aichi 487-8501, Japan

Received on June 23, 2015

ABSTRACT: In the present study, a simplified, one-way coupled, Discrete Droplet Method is proposed to model multiple
rain-droplet motions over the vehicle wall. The Lagrangian method is employed to track the droplet, on which four forces are
considered to act, i.e., aerodynamic drag, adhesion, viscous friction, and gravity. Based on the numerical experiment for one
droplet, we assumed a “PATH” created by a droplet on the vehicle surface, meaning a wet region, on which the viscous friction
was reduced once the droplet had passed. By taking this simple PATH effect into account, better agreements with the
corresponding experiment were observed for multiple-droplet cases with different vehicle configurations and flow speeds.
This method appears to have a good balance between accuracy and efficiency, and will potentially be applied to other
engineering problems such as iced-aircraft.

KEY WORDS: Heat-Fluid, CFD, Modeling / Droplet, Lagrangian method, One-way coupling [D1]

1. Introduction expensive, numerical simulations are expected to be efficient

alternatives (1). If computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can predict
the behavior accurately, an optimum car configuration can be found
Rain droplets can severely degrade the driver’s visibility when
in the earlier phase of its development.
droplets are flowing on the windshield, side glass, or door mirrors
There are several methods to predict the behavior of droplets,
of a car. Thus the study of this phenomenon is important from the
represented by Discrete Droplet Method (DDM) (2). This method
aspect of safety. Since those droplet motions are too complex to be
assumes that a particle (droplet), or a group of particles (“parcel”),
measured accurately, and since full-scale experiments are very
be tracked by the Lagrangian method, and has been applied to a
spray injection, for instance. However, this method lacks
satisfactory modeling of the interaction between a droplet and the
wall. Another popular method is the water film method in which
the water covering the wall is approximated by a continuous and
thin film (1, 3). This model is obviously less expensive than the
DDM, but it is questionable whether such a film approximation is
applicable to raindrop phenomena in which droplets are
independent and discrete unless under heavy rain conditions.
In our previous work, a numerical method suitable for rain
droplet simulations was proposed (4, 5). This method was derived

Fig. 1. Trapezoidal Body (Top) and Real Car Body (Bottom) Fig. 2 Experimental Result (4)

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 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112

from the conventional DDM, but each droplet motion even on the
���⃗ �⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉 = 0 (flying) (5)
wall (i.e., car-body) was simulated by the Lagrangian method. Thus,
while it still falls into the DDMs in a broad sense, it is considered Gravity, ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺 , and aerodynamic force, ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 , acting on a flying droplet,
more practical than the conventional counterparts because of its can be described as the following equations (7).
lower computational cost and broader applicability. The method
was validated through comparison with experiments involving ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺 = 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 𝑔𝑔⃗ (flying) (6)
simple geometries and/or flow physics (4, 5), yet challenges 1
remained for more realistic circumstances. ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 = 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 𝑆𝑆𝑝𝑝 𝜌𝜌𝐴𝐴 |𝑣𝑣
���⃗| 𝑣𝑣𝑟𝑟 (flying)
𝑟𝑟 ���⃗ (7)
2
Figure 1 shows a simplified car model as one of the present 24 6
computational objects (referred to as “Trapezoidal Body” 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 = + + 0.4 (8)
Re𝑝𝑝 1+�Re𝑝𝑝
hereafter), and a Real Car Body as the other. This object models
|𝑣𝑣
����⃗|𝐷𝐷
the front cabin of an automobile cruising in the rain. The previous Rep =
𝑟𝑟 𝑝𝑝0
(9)
numerical result successfully captured the corresponding droplets' 𝜈𝜈𝐴𝐴

motions of the experiments (as well as the airflow, computed by a 𝑣𝑣𝑟𝑟 = ����⃗�𝑟𝑟
���⃗ 𝑣𝑣𝐴𝐴 ���⃗� (10)
𝑝𝑝 − ����⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝
well-validated solver) qualitatively (4), but failed to reproduce
detailed features, e.g., droplets’ rise on the side glass near the 3 6 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝
leading edge (Fig. 2). Such a discrepancy is considered to be due 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝0 = � (11)
to lack of some physical information in this methodology. For 𝜋𝜋 𝜌𝜌𝐿𝐿
example, once a droplet moves on the wall, its path might be able 𝜋𝜋 2
to reduce skin friction due to the remnants of the droplet. This effect 𝑆𝑆𝑝𝑝 = 𝐷𝐷 (12)
4 𝑝𝑝0
may play a role in lifting the droplets. Therefore, in this paper, we where 𝑔𝑔⃗ is gravitational acceleration (gx, gy, gz) = (0, 0, -9.8) [m/s2]
will investigate the cause of the differences between our previous (where x, y, z are the streamwise, spanwise, and ground-normal
simulation and experiment, and then propose a new model to fill
directions, respectively, as will be illustrated later in Sec. 2.6), 𝜌𝜌𝐿𝐿
the gap along with its suitable droplet diameter (which was not
is droplet density 1000[kg/m3], and 𝜌𝜌𝐴𝐴 , 𝜈𝜈𝐴𝐴 , 𝑣𝑣𝐴𝐴 indicate density
rigorously determined in the past work (4, 5)). Finally, we will apply
the new model to a real car-body configuration. (1.185[kg/m3]), kinematic viscosity ( 1.55 × 10−5 [m2/s]), and
Although it is still challenging to simulate multiple-droplet velocity (20-33.3[m/s]) of air flow, respectively. 𝑆𝑆𝑝𝑝 is the projected
and surrounding flows accurately, the present work is the first step area of a droplet, whose shape being assumed as a sphere. We
of applying a simplified, one-way coupled DDM solver to referred the list summarized by Clift et al. (8) for the drag coefficient
individual droplet motions even on the vehicle wall. By further of a droplet sphere 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷 . 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝0 is the diameter of a sphere droplet.
refining it near future, we hope to contribute also to other
engineering applications such as iced-aircraft simulations (6). 2.3. Forces acting on a droplet moving on the wall

2. Numerical method for droplet When moving on the wall, one droplet’s motion is confined to
the wall-parallel direction due to the constraint force, 𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶 , following
2.1. Governing Equations for Droplet the inequality:

𝑓𝑓𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼 + 𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 < |𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 | (13)

In our numerical method, each droplet’s motion is computed
by solving each equation of motion individually (4). where 𝑓𝑓𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼 is magnitude of inertia (i.e., centrifugal force), 𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 is
For one droplet having mass 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 , its position, ���⃗
𝑟𝑟𝑝𝑝 and velocity, magnitude of the wall-normal component of gravitational force,
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝 , are expressed in the following equations of motion.
����⃗ and 𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 is maximum value of vertical constraint force
originated from surface tension. These forces are given as follows(5):
𝑑𝑑𝑟𝑟���⃗
𝑝𝑝 2
= ����⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝 (1) �����⃗�
�v
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 fIn = mp p
(14)
RW
𝑑𝑑𝑣𝑣
����⃗𝑝𝑝 𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 = 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 𝑔𝑔⃗ ∙ �����⃗
𝑛𝑛𝑊𝑊 (15)
𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 = ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑝𝑝 (2)
𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑
The force acting on one droplet, ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑝𝑝 is described as follows. 𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 = 𝛾𝛾𝐶𝐶 𝜋𝜋𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (16)

���⃗ In these equations, 𝑅𝑅𝑊𝑊 indicates the curvature radius of the wall
𝑓𝑓𝑝𝑝 = ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺 + ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶 + ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉 + ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 (3)
surface, �����⃗
𝑛𝑛𝑊𝑊 indicates the normal unit vector of wall surface, and
where ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺 , ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶 , ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉 , and ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 stand for gravity, constraint force, viscous 𝛾𝛾𝐶𝐶 is a parameter (1.48 × 10−2 [N⁄m] in this setup) introduced
friction, and aerodynamic force, respectively. These forces act based on the work by Furmidge (9), and determined by the
differently in the following two cases: (1) the droplet is flying (i.e., experiment in Ref. (4).
not contacting with the wall), and (2) the droplet is moving on the When Eq. (13) is satisfied, the parallel component to the wall
surface. In either case, Eq.(2) is differentiated as surface of each force decides the droplet motion. Illustrated in Fig.
���������⃗
𝑛𝑛+1 − ����⃗ ���⃗𝑝𝑝 , where 𝑣𝑣
����⃗ 3 are forces (along with their directions) acting on the droplet
𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 �𝑣𝑣 𝑝𝑝 𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝𝑛𝑛 �⁄∆𝑡𝑡 = 𝑓𝑓 𝑛𝑛
𝑝𝑝 is already known, and moving on the wall. The wall-parallel components of gravity,
���������⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝𝑛𝑛+1 is to be obtained. Details of these forces are explained in the viscous friction, and aerodynamic force to the wall are described as
following sub-sections. follows (7, 10).
�����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 = 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝 {𝑔𝑔⃗ − (𝑔𝑔⃗ ∙ �����⃗)𝑛𝑛
𝑛𝑛𝑤𝑤 �����⃗}
𝑤𝑤 (17)
2.2. Forces acting on a flying droplet
�����⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝
�����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 = −𝜇𝜇𝐿𝐿 𝑆𝑆𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 (18)
𝜆𝜆
Among the four forces, only ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺 , ���⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 act on a flying droplet, thus,
1
���⃗𝐶𝐶 = �⃗
𝑓𝑓 0 (flying) (4) �����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 = 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷 𝑆𝑆𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 𝜌𝜌𝐴𝐴 |𝑣𝑣
���⃗|
𝑟𝑟 ���⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑟𝑟 (19)
2

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 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112

where 𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝
����⃗
�����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 = −�𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 � (29)
𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷 = 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷0 Re−𝑚𝑚
𝑝𝑝 (20) �𝑣𝑣
����⃗�
𝑝𝑝

Rep =
|𝑣𝑣
����⃗|𝐷𝐷
𝑟𝑟 𝑝𝑝
(21) where we assumed the value of 𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 = |𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 | being
𝜈𝜈𝐴𝐴 common to 𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 .
𝑣𝑣𝑟𝑟 = ����⃗�𝑟𝑟
���⃗ 𝑣𝑣𝐴𝐴 ����⃗�
𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝 − ����⃗
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝 (22) |𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 | = 𝛾𝛾𝐶𝐶 𝜋𝜋𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (30)
𝑣𝑣𝑝𝑝 (in the current time step) and ����⃗
����⃗ 𝑣𝑣𝐴𝐴 (already available as the initial
condition) are velocity of droplet and velocity of airflow where the
droplet is located; 𝜇𝜇𝐿𝐿 is viscosity of the liquid ( 1.03 ×
10−3 [kg/(m·s)]); λ(= 9.38 × 10−5 [m]) is an experimentally
obtained viscous coefficient (corresponding to the shear-layer
thickness), 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷0 (=71), and m (=0.63) are parameters which depend
on physical properties and were identified by the preliminary
experiments (4, 9). The shape of a static droplet attaching on the body
surface can be approximated by a spherical cap (i.e., a part of a
sphere) as shown in Fig.4. Based on this assumption, the wall-
normal projected area, 𝑆𝑆𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 , the wall-parallel projected area, 𝑆𝑆𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 ,
and the center of figure, hp, are geometrically obtained as follows
(11):

𝜋𝜋
𝑆𝑆𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛 = 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝2 (23)
4

3 2 sin3 𝜃𝜃 12 𝑚𝑚𝑝𝑝
𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = � (24)
2−3cos𝜃𝜃+cos3 𝜃𝜃 𝜋𝜋 𝜌𝜌𝐿𝐿

2θ-sin2θ π
Stp = D2p (25)
π sin2 θ 8 Fig. 4 Shape of a droplet on the wall
𝜋𝜋 sin2 𝜃𝜃 2
ℎ𝑝𝑝 = 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (26) 2.4. Coalescence
2𝜃𝜃−sin2𝜃𝜃 3𝜋𝜋
where 𝜃𝜃 is a contact angle with the wall, defined as an angle
The coalescences of multiple droplets are considered in this
between liquid interface and solid interface, as shown in Fig. 4. Its
numerical method. When a droplet contacts with another, these two
value is governed by interface tensions.
droplets merge into one. When this occurs, the total mass and the
total momentum are conserved. Details are explained in Refs. (4,
5). The breakup of a droplet, however, is not taken into account
here (and thus, the droplet volume does not decrease when it is
sliding on the wall). Inclusion of such a breakup process is left as
the future work.

2.5. Contacts to and Detachment from the Wall

The two droplet-wall interactions, attachment to the wall and

detachment from the wall of the droplet, are considered in this
simulation. When the distance, 𝑑𝑑𝑤𝑤 , between the (center) position
of flying droplet and wall surface is not larger than the droplet's
radius as in Eq. (31), the droplet is considered to attach to the
wall. When the Eq. (32) is satisfied for the droplet on the wall
surface, then the droplet detaches from the wall surface and flies
Fig. 3 Schematic of forces acting on droplet
away (4).
𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝
The wall-tangential constraint force �����⃗ 𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 is originated from the 𝑑𝑑𝑤𝑤 ≤ (Attach) (31)
2
surface tension, and it is given by some experiments (4). When the
droplet is at rest,
𝑓𝑓𝐼𝐼𝐼𝐼 + 𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 ≥ 𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 (Detach) (32)
- �����⃗
If �𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 � > �𝑓𝑓 �����⃗ �����⃗
𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 + 𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 + 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 �,
where the wall-normal component of the aerodynamic force, fAn, is
�����⃗ �����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 = −(𝑓𝑓 �����⃗ �����⃗
G𝑡𝑡 + 𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 + 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 )
(27) not taken into account, since the droplet about to detach is still
within the boundary-layer and the resultant aerodynamic force is
- Otherwise, the constraint force �����⃗ 𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 described as in the negligibly small.
following equation acts on a droplet in the direction opposite
to the direction of �����⃗ �����⃗ �����⃗ 2.6. Forces versus Diameter Relations
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 + 𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 + 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 .
�����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 + �����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 + �����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 We can estimate the relation between the forces and a diameter
�����⃗
𝑓𝑓𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 = −�𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 � (28)
�𝑓𝑓𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 + 𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 + �����⃗
�����⃗ �����⃗ 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 � of droplet via the equations describing the forces acting on a droplet
introduced in the previous sections. Since the (sphere) droplet mass
When the droplet is moving, constraint force acts to the is proportional to the cubed diameter, Eq. (17) leads to the
direction opposite to the moving direction. following relation.

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through the computational method described in the precedent sub-

�����⃗
�𝑓𝑓 3
𝐺𝐺𝐺𝐺 � ∝ 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (33) sections (for droplets) and later in Sec. 3 (for airflow). The initial
Likewise, from Eq. (18) and Eq. (23), we can get, position of a droplet was set on the front surface of the Trapezoidal
Body shown in Fig. 1 (chord length = 680 mm, width = 250 mm,
�����⃗
�𝑓𝑓 2
𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 � ∝ 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (34) height = 250 mm). The simulations were conducted for 10 cases in
which a droplet was set to different positions as shown in Fig. 5
Furthermore, from Eqs. (19), (21), and (25), we can get the
(and as summarized in Table 1). We chose these initial positions so
�����⃗
following relation between aerodynamic force, 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 , and droplet’s that the droplets are still on the slope after the 0.075 second of
diameter. computations, and that the effect of the change in airflow velocity
is minimized while these droplets are moving. Only the right-half
�����⃗
�𝑓𝑓 1.37
𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 � ∝ 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (Rep << CD0); (35a) domain is solved, the initial velocity of a droplet was 0 (and can
start to move soon after receiving the aerodynamic force), and other
�����⃗
�𝑓𝑓 2
𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 � ∝ 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 (Rep >> CD0); (35b) conditions are shown in Tables 2 and 3. As in the past work (4, 5),
The relation between the maximum value of constraint force, we chose droplets with the typically-observed rain diameter from
1.2 mm to 3.0 mm, according to the definition of rain by Japan
𝑓𝑓⃗𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶,𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 , and droplet’s diameter is, from Eq. (16), Meteorological Agency (12). The output data were then ensemble-
�����⃗
�𝑓𝑓 1 (36) averaged for these 10 simulations.
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 � ∝ 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝

From the above estimations, it is found that the force most sensitive
to the droplet’s diameter is gravity, followed by viscous friction,
aerodynamic force, and finally, constraint force. Moreover, Eqs.
(34) and (35) have been derived based on an assumption that fVt and
fAt are functions of only droplet velocity vp, but actually, vp is also
a function of Dp, and this non-linearity cannot be expressed by a
mathematical form.

Fig. 6 The effect of droplet’s diameter on the force acting on

a droplet (x stands for Dp, and y for f)

The results are summarized in Fig. 6, in which the vertical axis

Fig. 5 Initial position of a droplet in each simulation
Thus, in addition to the above simple estimation, a preliminary
numerical experiment comparing magnitudes of those forces was
conducted: The representative cases of one droplet with different
sizes were simulated for 0.075 seconds (during which the flying
droplet can travel approximately a quarter of the model length)
shows the maximum values of the forces for the whole computation
in the log scale, and the horizontal axis shows the droplet’s
diameter (in the log scale, again). Dependencies of four forces on
droplet’s diameter can be clearly seen, that is, the steeper the slope
is, the larger the effect of the magnitude of force on diameter.
Because the trends of curves of fGt and fCt,max strictly followed Eqs.
(33) and (36) respectively, we can draw the fit curves as solid lines
in the log-log graph. From fCt,max and fGt, we can also observe that
the fGt is smaller than fCt,max because the droplet diameters of our
interest are small (within this size range, the fGt, being proportional
to Dp3, showed smaller values, though with a steeper slope, than
fCt,max which is proportional to Dp1).

Table 1 Droplets' initial positions

Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
𝑥𝑥 (flow) 194 220 166 129 90.5 254 220 190 141 104
𝑦𝑦 (span) 65.2 67.7 61.9 59.1 55.9 96.8 93.7 91.9 86.7 84.0
𝑧𝑧 (height) 112 127 95.8 74.6 52.3 147 127 110 81.3 59.9

Table 2 Computational conditions: air uniform flow for the Table 3 Parameters
Trapezoidal Case
Diameter of 0.5 – 3.0 mm (without Wet-PATH) /
Velocity of air uniform flow, 𝑈𝑈∞ 20 m/s droplets, 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 2.1 mm (with Wet-PATH)
Reynolds number of air uniform flow, Re 8.78 × 105 Contact angle, 𝜃𝜃 64 deg.
Reynolds number of air uniform flow, 2.5 × 103 Coefficient of constraint force, 𝛾𝛾𝐶𝐶 0.015 N/m
based on 𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = 2.0mm, Rep Standard drag coefficient, 𝐶𝐶𝐷𝐷0 71
Computational cells 730,000 Power in drag coefficient, m 0.63

108
 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112

On the other hand, trends of fVt and fAt did not follow the
functions of Dp given in Eqs.(34) and (35) (i.e., proportional to Dp2
and Dp1.37 or Dp2, respectively), but shown to be proportional to
Dp4.2 and Dp2.3, respectively. This seems because fVt is also a
function of a flow velocity, which is also a function of the diameter,
according to Eqs. (18) (4, 5). If the droplet's diameter increases, the
flow velocity at the droplet center (representing the flow velocity
at the droplet location) also increases and the force acting on the
droplet grows accordingly. This nonlinear effect cannot be
incorporated in a theoretical estimation as in Eq. (34), and the
numerical experiment conducted here indeed helped us explain the
actual relation. The trend of fAt can be explained in the similar way,
according to Eqs. (19) and (22). Thus, from now, we will refer to
this graph (Fig. 6) when comparing those forces. It can be seen
from the graph that the effect of fAt on the behavior of a droplet is
much larger than that of the other forces. In addition, the value of
fVt is the third largest in the case of a small droplet diameter (Dp
<2.0 mm), but it turns to the second largest and larger than fCt,max
when Dp ≥2.0 mm.
All in all, we can say as follows: (1) the most dominant force on
a droplet's behavior is aerodynamic force, fAt ; (2) if the droplet’s
diameter is small (say, smaller than approximately 2.0mm), the
effect of constraint force fCt,max is larger (i.e., second largest) than
that of viscous friction fV (i.e., third largest). Otherwise, the second
and third forces are flipped over; (3) the effect of gravity fG is
relatively small for all the diameters tested here.

Fig. 7 Four cases of a Droplet’s behavior

(a)𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = 1.5 mm (b)𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = 2.0 mm

(c)𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = 2.3 mm (d)𝐷𝐷𝑝𝑝 = 3.0 mm

Fig. 8 Four cases of 100 Droplets' behavior

109
 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112
U∞=20m/s
(a) With wet-path model
Fig. 9 Numerical results for Trapezoidal Body
U∞=22.2m/s
Door mirror
Fig. 10 Experimental result for Real Car Body
Fig. 11 Computational grid around Real Car Body
2.7. Wet Effect
The behavior of one droplet depends on the condition of the wall
surface significantly, and the wall condition of a certain region
changes when a droplet passes there. For instance, constraint force
and viscous friction are resulting from the interactions between a
droplet and wall surface. Thus, these forces are considered to act
differently on the wet region and elsewhere.
Now we assume that the change of the droplet’s motion on the
wet region can be modeled by control of viscous friction fVt, which
turned out to be the second largest force acting on droplets with a
large diameter in the previous sub-section. Our newly proposed
model here incorporates this change of fVt on the wet region: i) The
preceding droplet wets the wall surface, and then this region is
called “Wet-PATH” in the following sentences; ii) It is commonly
observed that the second (or later) droplet moves much faster on
the “Wet-PATH,” as if it receives smaller drag; iii) In our present
modeling, we assume that this is attributed to the change of viscous
friction fVt simply given as follows:
�����⃗ �⃗ (On Wet − PATH)
𝑓𝑓𝑉𝑉𝑉𝑉 = 0 (37)
A careful reader may regard this expression as an over-
simplification of inside droplet physics. At this preliminary stage,
110
U∞=20m/s
(b) Without wet-path model
Door sash
Droplet trace
Fig. 12 Velocity field around Real Car Body
however, it is better for us to start from such a simple modeling
(and refine it later in the subsequent studies). In fact, this
approximation is reasonable if no boundary-layer is formed
between the droplet and the Wet-PATH, at an extreme limit of λ
(and hence, Re) to infinity (according to Eq. (18), the viscous force
is inversely proportional to λ, which corresponds to boundary-layer
thickness; remember that the thickness is proportional to Re-0.5).
By implementing this model, the viscous friction which usually
reduces the velocity of droplet does not work on “Wet-PATH”, and
hence, the aerodynamic force fAt becomes more dominant.
Consequently, we expect a droplet to be lifted by airflow right after
the junction of the windshield and the side glass (indicated as a
dashed line in Fig. 5). A careful reader may speculate that turning
off the wall-tangential constraint force fCt, rather than (or in
addition to) fVt, would be a more accurate physical modeling. This
may be true, and such an interesting study will be done as a separate
work in the future. However, since the present method is based on
the previous work in Ref. (4) and the preliminary results in 2.6, at
this stage only one modification, i.e., Eq. (37), is employed and its
effect will be tested.
 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112
3. Computational Method for Airflow
At first, the steady airflow around the object is obtained. We
applied the Lattice Boltzmann Method to solve the flow field in this
study, as detailed and validated in Ref. (5). The turbulence is
modeled by LES/RNG-k-ε DES.
Second, the behaviors of droplets are simulated by the above
models based on the computed airflow. Note that the airflow,
treated as steady, is fixed and thus not affected by the droplets in
this one-way coupling simulation (4). In other words, the flow
solution is treated as input data in the droplet simulation, such as
𝑝𝑝 in Eq. (10).
𝑣𝑣𝐴𝐴 ���⃗�
����⃗�𝑟𝑟
4. Computational Results (without Wet-PATH Model)
Computational results without Wet-PATH model for the simple
model (Trapezoidal Body) cases are shown in this section. We
supply one droplet for the first case, and one hundred droplets for
the second case having the same diameter (as opposed to Refs. (4,
5) in which droplets with different diameters were distributed) for
ease of analysis. Then, the relation between one droplet’s behavior
on the body surface and the diameter will be studied, and the
specific diameter suited for the present methodology will be
determined.
Numerical results for the one droplet cases (Dp = 0.5, 1.0, 2.15,
or 3.0 mm) are shown in Fig. 7, in which each blue line shows the
droplet’s trajectory. The droplet’s behavior is classified into four
types: (A) As discussed in the previous section, if the droplet was
very small, the effect of aerodynamic force, 𝑓𝑓𝐴𝐴 was smaller than in
the case of larger droplet comparatively. Then, the smaller droplet
stopped at the moment of contact to the wall as shown in Fig. 7(a)
(Dp = 0.5 mm); (B) If the droplet was mildly small, it moved on the
wall surface to go around the front pillar, and entered the region of
the side glass where it stopped moving as shown in Fig. 7(b) (Dp =
1.0 mm); (C) If the droplet was mildly large, it kept moving on the
wall surface with airflow as shown in Fig. 7(c) (Dp = 2.15 mm); (D)
If the droplet was very large, say equal to or larger than 3.0 mm
diameter, its inertia at the time of going round the leading edge was
also too large, and eventually the droplet detached from the surface
as shown in Fig. 7(d) (Dp = 3.0 mm). Next in the multiple-droplet
cases, we will focus on middle-sized droplets (1.0 mm < Dp < 3.0
mm) that are neither too small nor too large to continue moving on
the side glass (along with the very large Dp = 3.0 mm case for
comparison).
Figure 8 shows the numerical results of the cases of a hundred
droplets having the same diameter, i.e., 1.5, 2.0, 2.3, or 3.0 mm. As
the initial condition, droplets were set upstream the Trapezoidal
Body on evenly spaced grid points of ten columns times ten lines.
The condition of air uniform flow and the parameters are
summarized in Table 2 and Table 3. The velocity of air uniform
flow, 𝑈𝑈∞ is 20 m/s (approximately 72 km/h). The colors of the
droplets' trajectory indicate ‘local’ diameter of droplets [from small
(blue) to large (red) with different scales depending on the initial
diameter]. When the droplet diameter was 1.5 mm or 2.0 mm,
corresponding to Fig. 8(a) or 8(b), most of the droplets stopped as
in the case of a single droplet (Fig. 7(b)). In this multiple droplet
case, however, some droplets collide with each other and coalesce
to form larger droplets. This phenomenon is indicated by change of
droplet colors on the side glass, typically from blue to green or red.
Coalescent droplets showed larger aerodynamic forces so that they
more likely to keep moving on the surface. In the case of Dp = 2.3
mm (Fig. 8(c)), many droplets were indeed moving on the surface
and experience collision. If the diameter of supplied droplets was
3.0 mm as in Fig. 8(d), many droplets on the body detached from
the surface and flew again after going around the front pillar. From
these results, we confirmed that the effects of coalescences are
111
significant, particularly for Dp = 2.0 mm - 2.3 mm, and we will
choose 2.1 mm as the diameter of supplied droplets in the rest of
the paper because this diameter best reproduced the corresponding
experiment (Fig. 2) and thus can be considered as the representative
diameter affecting the driver's visibility significantly. We will
apply it to the proposed Wet-PATH model.
5. Computational Results (with Wet-PATH Model)
5.1. Effects of Wet-PATH Model
Figure 9 shows the numerical results for the Trapezoidal Body
from the side view. Figure 9(a) shows the result of the case applying
the newly proposed, Wet-PATH model, and Fig. 9(b) shows the
result without the model. This moment was chosen because, at the
beginning of the computations, no Wet-PATH is formed and thus
no difference is expected between these two cases; whereas all of
the model surface will eventually be covered by Wet-PATH regions
in the end, which will make the comparison more difficult.
Comparing the results in the region on the side glass (in red
circle in Fig. 9), the number of rising paths in the case with the new
model is greater than that in the case without it. As a result, the new
model showed better agreement with the experiment (Fig. 2).
Whereas droplets tend to stop in the region near the leading edge
on the side glass in the case of Fig. 9(b), droplets in the case of Fig.
9(a) can keep moving in this region because of the absence of
viscous friction on the Wet-PATHs. This led to a higher possibility
of the droplets’ coalescences - As discussed in the previous section,
a larger droplet is more sensitive to the aerodynamic force. Hence,
the united droplet, having the larger mass, is affected more by the
airflow. We consider that this effect also has played a role in the
improvement of predictability of the experiment.
5.2. Application to Real Car Body
The same simulation method is applied to the Real Car body
configuration. This Real Car body was designed to be consistent
with a marketing car in detail, and its total length is approximately
4 m. To clearly observe the behavior of droplets on the side glass
of the car, the mirrors are not installed to this configuration. The
numerical results and the experimental results (for reference) are
explained in following subsections.
5.2.1. Reference Experiment
The experiment to observe the droplets’ behavior on the
surface of the Real Car body was conducted. The car wind tunnel
of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (Gӧttingen-type; Test section:
12m (x) × 6m (y) × 4m (z); maximum flow velocity: 216 km/h)(13)
was used and the droplets were supplied by a sprinkler. Airflow
velocity was set to 22.2 m/s. The result is shown in Fig. 10.
The droplets attached to the front windshield was moved up by
an airflow and moved to the edge of windshield. Then the droplets
moved round the front pillar and entered into side glass. The
droplets on the side glass left clear traces along the door sash and
eventually flew away.
5.2.2. Numerical Simulations
Velocity field of the airflow (not the droplets) around the Real
Car Body was solved first in the same way with the case of the
Trapezoidal Body. In this study, only the left-half domain is solved
as shown in Figure 11 (This figure shows only the region around
the Real Car Body, 20m (x) × 4.1m (y) × 4.5m (z); but the whole
computational domain covers 96m (x) × 24m (y) × 46m (z)). The
air uniform flow velocity is 22.2 m/s (Re = 6.31 × 106) as in the
experiment, and 20 million cells are used. The droplet parameters
are the same as those in Table 3. The numerical result of the stream-
 Naoki Harada et al./International Journal of Automotive Engineering 6 (2015) 105-112
lines of airflow near the side glass surface is shown in Fig. 12. From
this result, the stream-lines came round the front pillar and entered
into side glass, and bent upward along the door sash shape.
Therefore, the flow field derived numerically is in good agreement
with the droplet paths observed in the experiment (Fig. 10).
Fig. 13 Initial droplet input area (square)
Then, in the droplets simulation, in order to focus on the
behavior of the droplets on the side glass, we set the droplets’ initial
position as drawn in Fig. 13, in which only droplets on the wall
within the red frame are considered. The droplets are supplied
continuously in the red frame in Fig. 13. The positions where
droplets are supplied are chosen by random numbers between [0, 1)
of the uniform distribution with the standard deviation,𝜎𝜎 = 1⁄12,
and the average, 𝜇𝜇 = 0.5 . The water output is 4 l/min ∙ m2
according to the previous study (4).
Figure 14 shows the numerical results of the droplets’ behavior.
Figure 14(a) shows the result of the case applying the Wet-PATH
model and Fig. 14(b) shows the result in the case without it. In the
old model, Fig. 14(b), droplets’ paths were almost horizontal and
slightly downward, as if they wet the whole region of the side glass.
In other words, these paths were not affected by the airflow. On the
other hand, in the case of the new model, Fig. 14(a), there are many
paths along the door sash. In fact, difference between these
trajectories is remarkable, as indicated by arrows in these figures:
The trajectories of the case of the Wet-PATH model are more
similar to the experimental result than those of the case without the
new model. This demonstrates the clear difference between the two
cases and the effect of the new model: The Wetting-PATH model
proposed here led the improvement of the prediction accuracy on
the droplets’ paths even in this Real Car configuration case. Such
agreements are obtained also for 33.3 m/s airflow (not shown).
6. Conclusions
We developed a new numerical simulation method for the
behavior of droplets moving both on and off the wall surface, in
which the droplets are tracked by the Lagrangian method and the
surrounding airflow is solved by LBM code (one-way coupling
from flow to droplets). From the present numerical investigation, it
is found that a droplet’s behavior primarily depends on
aerodynamic force, followed by viscous friction and constraint
force, and that the droplet size suitable for our raindrop simulation
U∞=22.2m/s
(a) With wet-path model
Fig. 14 Numerical results for Real Car Body
112
method has been determined as 2.1 mm in diameter. Numerical
results of the new model taking the wall wetting into account to
reduce viscous friction showed better agreements with the
experiments for three test cases: a simple car geometry with an
airflow speed of 20 m/s airflow, and a real car geometry with
airflow speeds of 22.2 m/s and 33.3 m/s.
Turning off the wall-tangential constraint force, instead of the
viscous friction, would be a more accurate physical modeling and
might have stronger impacts on the droplet motion. Such effects
will be investigated as the future work. By further refining the
present method, we hope to contribute to iced-aircraft simulations
that involve ice particles flowing over an airfoil, and thus, still need
a physical yet economical modeling.
Acknowledgment
This work would not have been concluded without the work of
Katsunori Doi and Yosuke Maeyama. We are grateful to them.
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U∞=22.2m/s
(b) Without wet-path model