TY - JOUR TI - Simulation of spray droplets over the ocean surface AU - Xu Dan AU - Wan Zhanhong AU - Li Luping AU - Lu Xiuyang AU - Chen Jiawang AU - Li Bingru JN - Thermal Science PY - 2019 VL - 23 IS - 4 SP - 2171 EP - 2177 PT - Article AB - Spray droplets, ejected from the ocean surface, are known to transport in the marine atmospheric boundary-layer, in which they exchange momentum and heat with the atmosphere. This paper gives a numerical approach to description of sea spray drops. Large eddy simulation is used to perform the air-flow over the sea surface while simultaneously tracking the trajectories of Lagrangian point-particle elements designed to represent spray particles in air, the particle mo-mentum relaxation time, the suspension time, the velocity of particles in different radii and different wind speeds are discussed. This simplified model shows that the contribution of droplet particles to the air-sea momentum transport cannot be ignored. The spray droplets suspended over the sea surface are once formed, they will accelerate to the local wind speed in less than 1 second, and thereby the drops can extract momentum from the wind, reduce sea surface wind speed and eventually plunge back into the ocean. The averaged particle concentration is balanced by an equivalent production of new particles.