An Experimental Study on the Operating Parameters of a Simplex Swirl Injector

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Sharif University of Technhlogy, Tehran, IranReceived: 2016.2.25, Received in revised form: 2016.6.21, Accepted: 2016.7.2In this paper, the operating parameters of a swirl injector were studied as a function of Reynolds number (Re) and Weber number (We). Spray cone angle, liquid sheet breakup length and injector discharge coefficient are the parameters which their dimensionless variations were studied to characterize the injector behavior in terms of Re and We. At the end, these experimental results were compared with those of some famous models, such as LISA. All the experiments were prformed using a simplex swirl injector. Moreover, water was used as the operating fluid sprayed in atmospheric conditions. The Shadowgraphy imaging method was used to visualize the injection spray. Experimental results show that by increasing Re, the injection regime varies from Dripping Mode to Atomization Mode at Re=3×104, and by further increasing Re, the fully developed mode (that creates a clear conical sheet) is achieved at Re=3.7×104. Also, results show that the breakup lengthvaries with We0.5Re0.6 linearly. Although increasing Re initially increases the spray cone angle, but beyond a specific Re, this trend is stopped.