In this article a new combination of evaporation sub-models is established for the evaporating/combusting many-droplet fuel spray by investigating different correlations for the heat and mass transfer rates. Then the model is used for the simulation of turbulent evaporating sprays via a two-way coupled Eulerian--Lagrangian framework. A turbulence closure is achieved based on the Reynolds stress transport model for the carrier gas phase with a calibrated dispersion model for the dispersed droplets. After the validation of the model by a recent experimental database, the effects of physical parameters such as the pilot air temperature, coflow air velocity, jet turbulence intensity and Sauter mean diameter of the injected spray on the evaporation delay of realistic evaporating polydispersed turbulent fuel sprays are carefully investigated. It is observed that the Sauter mean diameter has major effect but the turbulence intensity has minor effect on the evaporation delay. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.