Experimental research of effervescent atomization of high viscosity fluids

The purpose of this research was to investigate the dependence of effervescent spray performance on fluid properties and atomizer internal design. The spray liquid included water and six kinds of high viscosity fluids. With the phase Doppler particle analyzer (PDPA), spray characteristics of various fluids were investigated. The influence of atomizer geometries and operating parameters were discussed. Increasing air-to-liquid ratio (ALR) will reduce droplets Sauter mean diameter (SMD) effectively. The largest SMD along radial is less than 120 μm. The exit orifice diameter and air injection diameter affects droplets SMD significantly, while the change of air injection angle and mixing chamber length has less effects on droplets SMD. The atomization quality of non-Newtonian fluid drops when the mixing chamber length increases. With the addition of xanthan gum the droplets SMD increase dramatically. The SMD of water is 60~95 μm, and the SMD of viscous fluids is 60-120 μm. ©2011 Chin. Soc. for Elec. Eng.