Microscopic Test of a Swirl Injector by High-speed Photography

Abstract

A swirl injector is tested to investigate the instability of the liquid sheet emanating from it and determine the main microscopic characteristics of the spray. The injector, which is tested, was already approved by doing the characterization tests (macroscopic). Due to the fact that the PDPA systems to measure the spray characteristics are very expensive and high-tech, and therefore inaccessible for us , it is attempted to investigate the specifications and instability of the liquid sheet as much as possible, by photography. The liquid sheet emanating from the injector has perturbations on its surface which originate from inside the injector. Due to the aerodynamic interactions, these perturbations grow and eventually lead to break up the liquid sheet and form the ligaments. The growth of these unstable waves can be observed in the images. Also the breakup length can be measured using the images recorded. Also ligaments in the primary breakup zone and droplets were shown.

Keywords

• swirl injector
• atomization setup
• spray cone
• liquid sheet instability