Breakup of Round Nonturbulent Liquid Jets in Gaseous Crossflow

Abstract

An experimental investigation of the primary breakup of nonturbulent round liquid jets in gas crossflow is described. Pulsed shadowgraph and holograph observations of jet primary breakup regimes, conditions for the onset of breakup, properties of waves observed along the liquid surface, drop sue and velocity properties resulting from breakup and conditions required for the breakup of the liquid column as a whole, were obtained for air crossflows at normal temperature and pressure. When combined with the earlier studies of Mazallon et al. (1999), the test range included crossflow Weber numbers of 02000, liquidgas momentum ratios of 100-8000, liquidgas density ratios of 683-1021, and Ohnesorge numbers of 0.003-0.12. The results suggest qualitative similarities between the primary breakup of nonturbulent round liquid jets in crossflows and the secondary breakup of drops subjected to shock wave disturbances (e.g., bag, multimode and shear breakup regimes are observed in both instances) with relatively little effect of the liquidgas momentum ratio on breakup properties over the present test range. Effects of liquid viscosity were also small for present observations where Ohnesorge numbers were less than 0.4. Phenomenological analyses were successful for helping to interpret and correlate the properties of primary breakup of round liquid jets in gas crossflows that were measured during the present investigation.