The injection of a plain liquid jet into a gaseous crossflow has been studied extensively. Empirical models describing the aspects of the breakup, penetration, and dispersion of the liquid jet have been developed based on experimental data. In recent years, however, more sophisticated simulation approaches such as surface-tracking methods have evolved, and as a result, a richer database for assessing accuracy is of great interest. In parallel, advancements in imaging diagnostics that can capture details regarding the breakup processes have occurred, creating an opportunity to provide new types of results that can be used for model validation. While imaging methods are convenient to apply, extraction of the necessary quantitative information to compare directly with advanced simulation methods requires considerable effort. Due to the vast amounts of data that can be generated in a matter of seconds, manual analysis of the images obtained can be tedious. As a result, automated methodologies for extracting this information are necessary. The present work describes the application of automated processing routines to the breakup of a plain liquid jet in a crossflow under varying conditions. The results extracted are used to generate correlations for column break point time, trajectory, and the dynamics of the breakup and liquid column characteristics. The correlations are compared with prior expressions generally derived from much smaller datasets and found to exhibit some significant differences, particularly with respect to the break time. These expressions can be incorporated into atomization models within computational fluid dynamics packages or as part of a standalone atomization model.
