Gas–liquid twin-fluid atomization from non-circular orifices

Passive control of twin-fluid atomization can be achieved by changing the orifice shape of the injector. In this study, the characteristics of twin-fluid atomization in the outside-in-liquid injector with circular, square, and rectangular orifices at various aspect ratios were investigated experimentally and computationally. The morphology of the spray was captured by shadowgraph, the diameter and velocity of the droplets were measured by the phase Doppler particle analyzer, and numerical simulations were performed for the central gaseous core. Comparing the sprays with square and circular orifices, droplets from the non-circular orifice are generally smaller with less disparities in droplet sizes due to the more intensive turbulent disturbances and corner effect. Furthermore, the non-circular orifice also results in better spatial distribution of the spray. The droplet diameters of the spray with a square orifice do not satisfy the log-normal distribution near the orifice along the centerline of the spray, which may be attributed to the different entrainment of spray droplets by the central gas flow for the sprays with circular and non-circular orifices. The twin-fluid sprays produced by the rectangular orifice also exhibit the same axial switching effect as in the high-pressure gaseous jet flow, in which the spray diffusion in the minor axis is more extensive than that in the major axis. Moreover, the droplets' Sauter mean diameter produced by the rectangular orifice is more sensitive to the size in the minor axis of the orifice and decreases as the aspect ratio of the orifice increases given the same cross-sectional area.