Effect of turbulence on drop breakup in counter air flow

Abstract

Understanding the factors that lead to breakup of liquid droplets is of interest in many applications. Liquid droplet breakup processes are typically broken into regimes based on a Weber number calculated based on an average flow velocity (Solsvik et al., 2013). In turbulent flows, the instantaneous velocity may differ significantly from the average velocity. Here an experimental investigation on the role of turbulence in the breakup process is undertaken, whose continuous phase is gas. The turbulence is produced by confined counterflow into which the droplets fall. Droplet breakup mode is visualized by high speed camera, and the turbulence of counterflow is measured by Particle Image Velocimetry. The experimental results show that the breakup morphology and mode frequency varies with the turbulence intensity of the counterflow.