Spray Characteristics of Air-assisted Vortex Nozzle at Low Pressure Condition

Abstract

A nozzle with vortex generator was used to develop the low pressure nozzle with high atomization performance and the nozzle atomized the liquid by centrifugal shear forces. In order to analyze the atomization characteristics, a shadowgraphy method was used and the measurement of droplet size was performed by using laser diffraction analyzer. The liquid injection pressure was fixed as 0.03 bar which is very low pressure and the gas injection pressures were changed from 0 bar to 2.0 bar. As a result, the breakup was achieved at the air injection pressure of 0.25 bar and over. The nozzle with the orifice diameter of 0.4 mm and the orifice gap of 0.25 mm presented small droplet diameters under 50 at the air injection pressure of 0.75 bar.