The instability and droplet size distribution of liquid-liquid coaxial swirling spray: An experimental investigation

Abstract

An experimental study is performed to study the effect of inner and outer injection pressure on spray characteristics and the detailed structure of interacted liquid sheets of a coaxial swirl injector. A high speed camera is used to visualize the transition merging process of the coaxial swirling liquid sheet. A laser reflection system is set up to analyze the wave frequency of liquid sheet. A Malvern RTSizer is used to measure the droplet size of the coaxial spray. It is found that the structure of the interacted spray is considerably different from the individual spray, the interaction between the inner and outer liquid film promoted the breakup. At the same injection pressure, the temporal instability of a liquid sheet does not change spatially. For both individual and coaxial spray, the wave frequency increase as the injection pressure increase. The individual inner spray is more unstable and easier to breakup. Furthermore, the relationship between the surface instability and the droplet size distribution of the coaxial liquid spray is investigated quantitatively. For both individual spray and coaxial sprays, the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) decrease as the inner injection pressure increase. The inner spray has a higher weighing factor that influences the SMD of the coaxial spray. For coaxial spray at low inner injection pressure, the liquid film thickness would be the dominate factor to the SMD.