EXPERIMENTS ON THE INJECTION OF ELLIPTICAL LIQUID JETS INTO A LOW SPEED AIRFLOW

An experimental investigation was performed to study the physics of liquid jets injected into a low subsonic crossflow. The jets are issued from elliptical and circular injectors with equivalent exit area. The liquid jet was visualized using shadowgraph technique and a high speed camera was used to record the instantaneous status of the jet. The liquid / air momentum flux ratio and air Weber number were varied to examine their effects on different parameters of the flow like liquid jet column trajectory, breakup point and breakup regimes. The major axis of the elliptical nozzle was aligned parallel and perpendicular to the air crossflow direction. Two different breakup modes were observed, column breakup and bag breakup. Based on the obtained results some characteristics of injected liquid jets into the air crossflow such as penetration depth and the trajectory of liquid jet were affected by changing the nozzle exit shape.