DEVELOPING A SHADOWGRAPH EXPERIMENT SYSTEM FOR CHARACTERIZING SPRAY ATOMIZATION

Abstract

The development of modern imaging techniques plays an imporatnt role in studying fuel spray atomization. Shadowgraph combines camera, lens and light sources to experimentally determine micro parametters (droplet size, droplet size distribution, velocity of droplets) and macro parametters (cone angle, breakup length, penetration) of spray structure. To achieve high quality, shadowgraph systems need to be carefully validated to ensure realiability and capability of working under various operating conditions. This article develops an experiment system for characterizing spray atomization by shadowgraph imaging technique. A peliminary study on an air-blast atomizer is also provided.