Breakup of Turbulent and Non-Turbulent Liquid jets in Gaseous Crossflows

Abstract

An experimental and computational investigation of the primary breakup of nonturbulent and turbulent 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 size 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. The test range included crossflow Weber numbers of 0-2000, liquid/gas momentum ratios of 100-8000, liquid/gas density ratios of 683-1021, Ohnesorge numbers of 0.003-0.12, jet Reynolds numbers of 300-300,000. 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 with relatively little effect of the liquid/gas momentum ratio on breakup properties over the present test range. The breakup of turbulent liquid jets was influenced by a new dimensionless number in terms of liquid/gas momentum ratio and the jet Weber number. Effects of liquid viscosity were small for present observations where Ohnesorge numbers were less than 0.4. Phenomenological analyses were successful for helping to interpret and correlate the measurements.