Takahiro Okabe

Effect of Prefilmer Edge Thickness on Breakup Phenomena of Liquid Film in Prefilming Airblast Atomizer

This paper describes the investigation of the effect of a prefilmer edge thickness on the breakup phenomena of a liquid film in a prefilmer airblast atomizer. The breakup phenomena of the liquid film at five prefilmer edge thicknesses (160, 500, 1250, 2000, and 3000 μm) under various conditions was observed using a high-speed camera. The breakup length of the liquid film was calculated by an image processing technique developed in this study. In order to quantitatively evaluate the effect of the prefilmer edge thickness on the breakup frequency, the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) analysis was conducted based on the time evolution of the breakup length. The results indicated that the breakup length increase and the breakup frequency decreases by increasing prefilmer edge thickness due to a larger volume of a liquid accumulation attaching to the prefilmer edge. The FFT analysis showed that the increase in prefilmer edge thickness causes the transition of the maximal power spectrum to a lower frequency (i.e. less than 100 Hz) due to the increase in the liquid accumulation at the edge as well. Finally, a dimensionless correlation has been proposed for the breakup length of a liquid film.