Abstract

In this study, spray formation and atomization, droplet evolutions, break-up, and corresponding cavitating flows at the outlet of a short micro-channel with an inner diameter of 152 μm were experimentally studied at different injection pressures with the use of a high speed visualization system. High speed visualization was performed at five different segments to cover a ∼27.5 mm distance beginning from the micro-channel outlet (Five segments, at distances of 0-5.5, 5.5-11, 11-16.5, 16.5-22 and 22-27.5 mm from the micro-channel outlet) to assess the spray formation mechanism. High speed visualization revealed that droplet evolution is initiated from the second segment at low upstream pressures (5-30 bars), whereas droplets are discretized from the liquid jet in the fourth and fifth segments at medium and high upstream pressures (40-100 bars). Bigger size droplets formed at the outlet up to an injection pressure of 30 bars, while cavitation effect of intensified cavitating flows became dominant beyond this injection pressure, leading to smaller droplet sizes and a more conical spray. Pressure drop was correlated together with Martinelli parameter for cavitating flows and a new correlation for two-phase pressure drop was developed. Moreover, in order to segment the discretized droplets at low upstream pressure (5-30 bars) from captured images and to perform an in-depth analysis on them, an active contour approach utilizing curve evolution and level set formulation was implemented. As shown by experimental results, droplets were successfully segmented at different low pressure levels. The droplet/bubble evolution can be exploited in biomedical and engineering applications, where destructive effects of bubbly cavitating flows are needed.

Highlights

• Spray formation in different segments starting from the outlet of a short microchannel was studied.
• An edge-free active contour method was implemented to successfully segment individual droplets.
• This study helps to visualize the formation of spray and to capture separated droplets in micro scale.
• A new correlation for predicting two-phase pressure drop was developed.

Keywords

• Micro scale cavitation
• Active contour
• Segmentation
• Spray
• Pressure drop correlation

BibTeX

@article{ghorbani2018characterization,
  title={Characterization and pressure drop correlation for sprays under the effect of micro scale cavitation},
  author={Ghorbani, Morteza and Alcan, Gokhan and Sadaghiani, Abdolali Khalili and Mohammadi, Ali and Unel, Mustafa and Gozuacik, Devrim and Ko{\c{s}}ar, Ali},
  journal={Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science},
  volume={91},
  pages={89--102},
  year={2018},
  publisher={Elsevier}
}