AbstractWhen a droplet is suddenly injected into a high‐temperature environment, the droplet self‐ignition phenomenon occurs. A simple model, based on the temperature history of target gas mixture of which the equivalent ratio is equal to 1, was proposed to predict the droplet ignition delay time in this paper. This approach clearly divides the droplet self‐ignition delay into two parts, the physical delay and the chemical delay. The predicted droplet ignition times agree well with the experimental data and numerical simulation results. In addition, the influence of droplet diameter on the droplet ignition delay was discussed in detail using this approach. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/htj.20240