A mix Lagrangian Eulerian approach for volatile particles and contrails formation

Condensation trails (contrails) are considered the main non CO2 effect of aviation on global warming (Lee 2021) However, the uncertainty remains important and therefore a better understanding of the physical process underlying contrail formation is required. For a Jet A-1 kerosene fuel burned with a rich burn engine, the formation of contrails is mainly due to the condensation of water around soots emitted by the engine. In the case of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) or lean burn engines, the soots emitted are in very weak quantity so to let other nucleation process to occur (Kärcher 2018) such as homogeneous nucleation based on water and sulfuric acid (Rojo 2014). In order to perform contrail formation simulation with the details of the jet dilution due to the interaction between the plume and the aerodynamic of the aircraft, it is important to include the nucleation process strongly coupled with the aerodynamic in the simulation. This has been done for nucleation around soots (Khou 2016) but not for homogeneous nucleation. In this work, we propose a mix Lagrangian Eulerian approach in order to evaluate the homogeneous nucleation.

Lee D.S. et al., The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018, Atmospheric Environment, 2021

Kärcher B, Formation and radiative forcing of contrail cirrus, Nature, 2018

Rojo C. et al., Impact of alternative jet fuels on aircraft-induced aerosols, Fuel, 2014

Khou JC. et al., CFD simulation of contrail formation in the near field of a commercial aircraft: Effect of fuel sulfur content, Atmospheric Chemistry, 2016