Theoretical and experimental study of atomization from an annular liquid sheet

Abstract

A temporal linear instability analysis is conducted to examine the e ects of both inner and outer gas velocities and various flow parameters on the break-up process of an annular viscous liquid sheet. The results show that a gas stream of high speed applied to the inner interface is more e ective to promote the sheet instability than to the outer one. Compared with a single gas stream, a co-flowing gas stream with a high speed improves the atomization performance. With the same or di erent gas velocities between the two sides of the liquid sheet, the gas density and the liquid surface tension have di erent e ects on the liquid sheet instability. Experiments measured liquid sheet wavelengths and break-up lengths. Computations with a typical nozzle and the flow conditions are comparable with the experiment.