Guest Editorial Particle Sizing And Spray Analysis

Abstract

The measurement of particle size and velocity in particle laden flows is a subject of interest in a variety of industrial applications. In combustion systems for electricity generation, industrial processes and heating, and transportation, where liquid and solid fuels are injected into air streams for burning in furnaces, boilers, and gas turbine and diesel engines, the initial size and velocity distributions of particles are determining factors in the overall combustion efficiency and the emission of pollutants and particulates. In the design of injectors and burners for the atomization of liquid fuels, a great deal of attention is being focused on developing instrumentation for the accurate measurement of size and velocity distributions in sprays as a function of space and time. Most recent advances in optical engineering techniques using lasers for particle measurement have focused on detailed spray characterization, where there is a major concern with spherical liquid droplets within the size range of 1 to 500µm in diameter, with droplet velocities within the range of 1 to 100 m/s, and the requirement for making in situ measurements of moving particles by nonintrusive optical probes. The instruments being developed for spray analysis have much wider applications. These include measurement in particle laden flows encountered in a variety of industrial processes with solid particles in gas and liquid streams and liquid particles in gas streams. Sprays used in agriculture, drying, food processing, coating of materials, chemical processing, clean rooms, pharmaceuticals, plasma spraying, and icing wind tunnels are examples of systems for which information is being sought on particle and fluid dynamic interactions in which there is heat, mass, and momentum transfer in turbulent reacting flows.