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Investigating the Effect of the Injector

Length/Diameter ratio on the Primary Breakup of
Liquid Jets using X-ray...

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ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

Investigating the Effect of the Injector Length/Diameter ratio on the Primary Breakup of
Liquid Jets using X-ray Diagnostics

A. Osta, J. Lee, K.A. Sallam*

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078 USA

K. Fezzaa
Argonne National Lab, Argonne, Illinois 60439 USA

Abstract
The disintegration of turbulent liquid jets in gases; a process termed turbulent primary breakup, has many industrial
applications, especially in liquid fuel injection systems. A better design of liquid fuel injector would reduce pollut-
ants and increase the efficiencies of liquid fuel combustion processes. An intriguing question is the relative impor-
tance of the liquid turbulence, cavitation, and the aerodynamic forces in the breakup processes of fuel injectors. An
investigation into this question was carried out by using x-ray diagnostics on injectors with a smooth entry (to elimi-
nate cavitation) followed by round passage with different length-to-diameter ratio of 10 and 40. The test matrix is
designed to maintain the same aerodynamic forces in order to isolate the effects of jet turbulence on the breakup
process. The tests were conducted at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National lab which has the combina-
tion of high brilliance, small size, broad energy spectrum and flexible time structure (hybrid-singlet mode). This
allows the surface topography of fuel jets to be finally visible and the breakup mechanism in the dense-spray near-
injector region to be revealed. The present results show that the ligament distribution follows an arrangement along
the jet surface. The results also show the presence of bubbles inside the liquid jet interfering with the ligament for-
mation processes.

Introduction
The disintegration of turbulent liquid jets in gases; a process termed turbulent primary breakup, has many indus-
trial applications, especially in liquid fuel injection systems. A better design of liquid fuel injector would reduce
pollutants and increase the efficiencies of liquid fuel combustion processes. A question of interest is the relative im-
portance of the liquid turbulence and the aerodynamic forces in the breakup processes of fuel injectors. An answer to
this question could be finally found by understanding the liquid jet breakup processes by increasing the amount of
jet turbulence while maintaining the same level of aerodynamic forces along the jet surface. Previous studies [1,2],
have shown that the jet breakup characteristics was significantly influenced by the geometry of the injector passage.
Lin et al.[3] experimentally investigated near field structure of liquid jets in still air using double-pulse x-ray,
and suggested that the effect of turbulence eddies or linear wave on the primary breakup of a pure liquid jet
should be studied more using the x-ray diagnostics. Moreover the dense spray core is optically inaccessible to
almost all of the standard visualization techniques. In order to visualize the changes undergone inside the jet
core as well as in the dense near jet-exit region highly energetic and penetrable x-ray beams are a solution. The
APS undulator source has the combination of high brilliance, broad energy spectrum and will allow the surface to-
pography to be finally visible and the breakup mechanism in the dense-spray near-injector region to be revealed.
The test matrix included testing two injectors with a smooth entry (to minimize cavitation) with length-to-diameter
(L/D) ratio of 10, and 40. The test matrix was designed to isolate the effects of jet turbulence due to the nozzle pas-
sage length on the jet breakup process.

Experimental Methods
The experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 1. The turbulent round liquid jet was injected vertically downward
using a pressure feed system into a collecting pan. The test liquid was contained within a cylindrical liquid supply
stainless steel chamber. The nozzles had a smooth rounded entrance (R/D = 1.2) followed by round constant area
passages having length-to-diameter ratios of 10 and 40 to provide different degrees of turbulence development at the
jet exit. The liquid was forced through the nozzle by admitting high pressure air 30-140 psi (from a pressure tank
and a compressor) to the top of the chamber through a solenoid valve. A baffle at the air inlet prevented undesirable
mixing between the air and the test liquid.

*
Corresponding author, khaled.sallam@okstate.edu
ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

The experimental method consisted of imaging the ultrafast synchrotron x-ray phase contrast beam from a
source size 15 m vertical and 240 m horizontal after passing through the turbulent jet onto a SensiCam CCD cam-
era having 1024 x1280 pixel resolution. The effective field of view was around 1.37mm x 1.71 mm. The images
were then normalized and measurements were made on them.
The data reduction methods were similar to previous work on breakup of turbulent jets in still air [4]. Ligaments
will be considered as approximately cylindrical and would be represented by their average diameters and lengths.
Phenomenological analysis would be used to help interpret and correlate the results of the new measurements.

Results and Discussion

To understand the effects of turbulence on the jet surface characteristics X ray imaging was carried out on jets
in still air. The present study was limited to small Ohnesorge number liquid jets (Oh < 0.01). It has been argued that
the driving force behind the jet breakup is the aerodynamic drag force acting on the jet surface causing the surface
instabilities to increase and finally give way to jet disintegration. However, the role played by the internal turbulence
in the jet can never be ruled out. In fact a sufficiently high degree of turbulence in a jet could initiate the jet instabil-
ity and could well be the driving mechanism in causing the jet to disintegrate before it would have had, had it solely
been due to the aerodynamic interplay. In order to answer this it is necessary to visualize the changes undergone
inside the jet core, the jet surface activity as well as in the dense near jet-exit region. As most of the standard
diagnostic procedures fail due to the optical opacity of the above regions in dense turbulent spray cases, highly
energetic and penetrable x-ray beams seemed to be an encouraging solution to the challenge. By zooming on
the surface topography obtained in the x-ray images and following their dynamics, measurements were made with
respect to the ligament size and their surface distribution as shown in Figures 4(a),(b). Since the geometrical align-
ment and appearance of the ligaments on the jet surface were of interest the circumferential position of ligament at
any location y along the jet centerline having radius R was estimated by measuring the projected length along the jet
centre plane. The ligament effective diameter dlig is calculated from the measured ligament projected length Llig and
the ligament projected area on the image Alig as : dlig = Alig /Llig it is a fairly good representation of the ligament size.
The circumferential length at any angle could be easily estimated as shown in Figure 6.
Based on the measurements the ligaments seemed to appear along regularly spaced lines for both the nozzles.
Also significant presence of bubbles in the jet was observed for jet from nozzle L/D = 10 and this seemed to influ-
ence the surface characteristics. Also the ligament diameters increased streamwise for the longer nozzle. However
they seemed to show up late in this case.
A close-up view of the upstream jet surface is shown in Figure 3 wherein the typical wavelength of the surface
instabilities is clearly visible along with the bubble flow inside the jet and suggestive of the fact that the nozzle pas-
sage length as well as entrance curvature are some of the factors that could be designed to improve atomization qual-
ity in fuel injectors. The x-ray images for turbulent jets from nozzles with L/D = 10, 40 and D = 4mm, in still air
upto 12mm is shown in Figure 5(a) and 5(b).

Acknowledgement
Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Of-
fice of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Nomenclature
dj = Liquid jet diameter at jet exit
D = Inner diameter of the nozzle
L = Length of the nozzle passage
Oh = Ohnesorge number, L /(Ldj )1/2
ReLD = Liquid jet Reynolds number, ( Lvjdj /L)
t = Time
v = Stream wise velocity (in the vertical direction)
WeL = Jet Weber number, ( Lvj2 / )
x = Projected length along the diameter
y = Downstream distance (vertical)
R = Radius
S = Spreading Function of Jet
Subscripts
b = End of the liquid core property
j = Jet exit property
ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

lig = Ligament properties.

References
1. McCarthy, M. J., and Molloy, N. A., "Review of Stability of Liquid Jets and the Influence of Nozzle Design."
The Chemical Engg. Journal, 1974, Vol. 7, No., pp. 1-21.
2. Karasawa, T., Tanaka, M., Abe, K., Shiga, S., Kurabayashi, T., Effect of Nozzle Configuration on the Atomiza-
tion of a Steady Spray., Atomization and Sprays, 1992, Vol. 2, pp. 411-426.
3. Lin, K. C., Carter, C., Fezza, K., and Wang, J., Ultrafast X-Ray Study of Aerated-Liquid Jets in a Quiescent
Environment, 21st Annual Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, ILASS, 2008, Orlando, Flor-
ida.
4. Sallam, K.A., and Faeth, G.M., (2003), Surface Properties during Turbulent Primary Breakup of free Liquid
Jets, AIAA Journal, Vol. 41, pp. 1514-1524.

Parameters Turbulent
Nozzle diameter (m) 0.004
Nozzle entrance curvature (R/D) 1.2
Nozzle passage length (L/D) 10, 40
Density of gas, air (air) kg/m3 1.215
Dynamic viscosity of gas, air (air) 1.85E-05
Surface tension of test liquid, water (w) N/m 0.0708
Density of test liquid, water. (w)-kg/m3 997
Dynamic viscosity of test liquid (w) Ns/m2 8.94E-04
Jet Weber Number (WeLD) 104-105
Jet Velocity (Vj) m/s 30
Jet Reynolds Number (ReLD) 40000 - 200000
Ohnesorge Number (Oh) 0.001682

Table 1. Operating and Initial conditions

ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

Figure 1. Schematic of experimental apparatus

Figure 2. X-ray diagnostic experimental setup.

ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

Figure 3. The X-ray jet image showing the surface ligaments and the bubble entrainment in the jet.

0 0

4 4

8 8
Yligbase

Yligbase

12 12

16 LIQ L/D Vj dlig 16

(m/s)
LIQ L/D Vj dlig
(m/s)
Water 10 30 M
Water 40 30 M
20 20
-4 -2 0 2 4 -4 -2 0 2 4
Xligbase Xligbase

(a) (b)

Figure 4. Ligament size distribution projected along the jet centre plane for (a) L/D = 10 and (b) L/D = 40.
 ICLASS 2009 Effect of L/D ratio on the Primary Breakup of Liquid Jets using X-Rays.

(a) (b)

Figure 5. The X-ray jet images for (a) L/D = 10 and (b) L/D = 40.

y1
R1
x x x

R
y2
R R2
S1
S2
vj

Figure 6. Diagrammatic representation of the jet cross sectional and jet transverse planes.

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