Single oil drop breakage in water: Impact of turbulence level in channel flow

Abstract

Single octanol droplet fragmentations in channel flow have been investigated by use of high speed imaging. The resulting raw data have been analyzed, interpreted and used to elucidate the fluid particle breakage phenomena, enabling improved understanding and motivating development of more universal population balance equation closures. The breakage kernel functions considered are the breakage time, the breakage probability, the average number of daughters and the daughter size distribution. These functions have been determined from the same set of data ensure consistency. The impact of the drop size and the turbulent energy dissipation rate on the different kernel functions were investigated. The breakage probability and average number of daughters functions correlate reasonably with the Weber number. Similarly, the breakage time correlates adequately with known model concepts. However, the correlations may not be considered universal as the parameter values obtained are not in agreement with values reported in the literature.