This work deals with numerical simulations of atomization with high Weber and Reynolds values. A special attention has been devoted to the modelling of primary break-up. Due to progress of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of two phase flows it is now possible to simulate the primary break-up of a Diesel spray [Menard, T., Tanguy, S., Berlemont, A., 2007. Coupling level set/VOF/ghost fluid methods: validation and application to 3D simulation of the primary break-up of a liquid jet. Int. J. Multiphase Flow 33 (5), 510-524]. The present formulation of the so-called ELSA (Eulerian-Lagrangian Spray Atomization model) [Vallet, A., Borghi, R., 1999. Modelisation Eulerienne de Vatomisation d'un jet Liquide. C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser II b 327, 1015-1020] for atomization is presented and evaluated in the dense zone of the spray by comparison to a DNS based on a coupled level set/VOF/ghost fluid method. Once constants and parameters of the model are fixed thanks to comparisons with DNS, the model is tested with experimental data. The liquid and vapour penetrations show a good agreement when they are compared to experiments of Diesel atomization. In particular the influence of the gas temperature is well recovered. For different temperatures, similarly to the experiments, vapour penetrations are unchanged, but the corresponding equivalent ratio fields are strongly modified. Finally, the combustion model ECFM-3Z [Colin, O., Benkenida, A., 2004. The 3-zones extended coherent flame model (ecfm-3z) for computing premixed/diffusion combustion. Oil Gas Sci. Technol. 59 (6) 593-609] is joined to the ELSA model and the effect of gas temperature changes on a Diesel spray flame is reproduced. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.