Experimental study on the spray characteristics of a pintle injector element

A liquid-liquid pintle injector element was used as the test object to analyze its spray characteristics from four aspects: spray morphology, spray dynamic characteristics, spray velocity distribution, and the relation between spray cone angle and momentum ratio. Experimental results indicated that the range of the spray area can be adjusted using the total momentum ratio. When the total momentum ratio changes in the scale of 0.04-0.2, the spray cone angle remains between 45 degrees and 70 degrees, where the semi-open fan-shaped spray area exhibits the most significant dynamic characteristics, the most uniform dynamic energy distribution, the largest high-speed velocity range, and the best atomization. The smaller the block factor, the more sensitive is the spray cone angle to changes in the total momentum ratio. In particular, an expression including the local momentum ratio as an independent variable can be used to accurately predict the spray cone angle in a liquid-liquid pintle injector.