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Atomization and Sprays, Vol.31, No.2, 63-86, 2021
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO LIQUID BREAKUPMORPHOLOGY AND SPRAY CHARACTERISTICS OF A CROSS-FLOW INJECTOR
Low flow-rate spray devices have many diverse engineering applications ranging from low energy burners to medical inhalers. Conventional flow-focusing atomizers are unsuitable for low injection-rate applications due to inefficient atomization. Coaxial flow-blurring injectors have shown the capability of spray formation at extremely low injection rates although challenges remain with respect to maintaining a submillimeter gap and concentricity between the liquid tube and the orifice. To achieve miniaturization, this work presents the development of a novel cross-flow injector design. This injector atomizes the liquid into micron-sized droplets at extremely low flow-rate conditions with little pressure loss. Experiments were conducted at an ultralow liquid flow rate (< 0.1 g/s) relevant for various small-scale applications. The injector exhibits three distinct atomization modes based on the primary liquid breakup mechanism. The experiments demonstrated that the two-phase gas-liquid interaction inside the injector has a significant influence on the external liquid breakup. No spray formation was observed for the flow-focusing breakup regimes. A steady, axisymmetric, fully developed spray formation was reported only between 0.06-0.1 g/s with the flow-blurring mode of the liquid breakup. In addition, a comparative investigation was performed to highlight the effects of exit orifice geometry on fundamental spray characteristics such as droplet size and droplet velocity. The preliminary results obtained in this study suggest that overall superior atomization quality can be achieved with the conical exit orifice.
Keywords:flow-focusing;flow-blurring;bubble-bursting;internal flow visualization;orifice geometry;small-scale combustion