Enhancement of liquid sheet breakup and atomization for spinning jet–jet impingement

To break the inherent mirror symmetry and promote the atomization for the traditional jet–jet impingement, the present paper proposed an improvement by the impingement between two spinning jets and numerically verified the enhancement of liquid sheet breakup and atomization by jet spinning effects. First, an appropriate jet spin velocity was selected based on the deformation and flow instability for a single spinning jet. Then, the impingement between two non-spinning jets and spinning jets with different spin directions at either small or large jet injection Weber numbers were studied. The results verified that the identical spinning jet–jet impingement could promote the liquid sheet breakup and atomization for the small jet injection inertia, which is especially useful for the variable thrust engines at small mass flow rate conditions; and the jet spin motion plays insignificant roles because the liquid sheet breakup is dominated by the sufficient large jet injection inertia. In addition, too large jet spin angular velocity causes the premature Rayleigh–Taylor instability and reduces the effective jet–jet impingement mass. Finally, the enhancement of liquid sheet breakup and atomization is also applicative for the spinning jet–jet impingement of high-viscous liquids usually used in practical applications.