Abstract
A three-dimensional viscous stability analysis has been carried out to model airblast atomization. The model considers an annular liquid sheet downstream of an airblast atomizer and incorporates essential features, such as three-dimensional disturbances, liquid viscosity, innerand outerair swirl, and e nite e lm thickness. Effects of axial velocity, air swirl, and liquid viscosity on the growth rates of various disturbance modes have been examined in detail.Ithasbeenfoundthatincreasingtherelativeaxialvelocitybetweentheliquid andthegasphasessignie cantly improves the fuel atomization. The inner and outer air moving together enhances the instability of the liquid sheet more signie cantly than only the inner or outer air. When air swirl is absent, theaxisymmetricmode dominates the breakup process of the liquid sheet. Liquid viscosity is found to have a twofold effect: reduce the growth rates of unstable waves and shift the dispersion diagram toward long waves. Air swirl not only promotes the instability of theliquidsheet,butalso switchesthedominantmodefrom theaxisymmetricmodetoahelicalmode.Acombination of the inner and outer air swirl improves airblast atomization more signie cantly than a single air swirl.
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