The influence of the ambient pressure on the breakup process is investigated by means of PIV and shadowgraphy in the configuration of a planar prefilming airblast atomizer. The ambient pressure is varied from 1 to 8 bar. Other investigated parameters are the gas velocity and the film loading. From single-phase PIV measurements, it is found that the gas velocity in the vicinity of the prefilmer partly matches the analytical profile from the near-wake theory. The shadowgraphy images of the liquid phase directly downstream of the prefilmer allow to extract characteristic quantities of the liquid accumulation at the atomizing edge. Two different characteristic lengths, as well as the ligament velocity and a breakup frequency are determined. In addition, the droplets generated directly downstream of the liquid accumulation are captured. Hence, the spray Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) and the mean droplet velocity are given for each operating point. A scaling law of these quantities with regard to ambient pressure is derived. A correlation is observed between the characteristic length of the accumulation and the SMD, thus promoting the idea that the liquid accumulation determines the primary spray characteristics. An threshold to distinguish the zones between primary and secondary breakup is proposed based on an objective criterion. It is also shown that taking non-spherical droplets into account significantly modifies the shape of the dropsize distribution, thus stressing the need to use shadowgraphy when investigating primary breakup. The ambient pressure and the velocity are varied accordingly to keep the aerodynamic stress ρ g U 2 g constant. This leads to almost identical liquid accumulation and spray characteristics. Hence, it is confirmed that the aerodynamic stress is a more appropriate parameter than the gas velocity or the ambient pressure to characterize prefilming airblast breakup. Finally, SMD correlations from the literature are compared to the present experiment. Most of the correlations calibrated with LDA/LDT measurement underestimate the SMD. This highlights the need to use shadrowgraphy for calibrating primary breakup models.

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The formation of pollutant emissions in jet engines is closely related to the fuel distribution inside the combustor. Hence, the characteristics of the spray formed during primary breakup are of major importance for an accurate prediction of the pollutant emissions. Currently, an Euler–Lagrangian approach for droplet transport in combination with combustion and pollutant formation models is used to predict the pollutant emissions. The missing element for predicting these emissions more accurately is well defined starting conditions for the liquid fuel droplets as they emerge from the fuel nozzle. Recently, it was demonstrated that the primary breakup can be predicted from first principles by the Lagrangian, mesh-free, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. In the present work, 2D Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of a planar prefilming airblast atomizer using the SPH method are presented, which capture most of the breakup phenomena known from experiments. Strong links between the ligament breakup and the resulting spray in terms of droplet size, trajectory and velocity are demonstrated. The SPH predictions at elevated pressure conditions resemble quite well the effects observed in experiments. Significant interdependencies between droplet diameter, position and velocity are observed. This encourages to employ such multidimensional interdependence relations as a base for the development of primary atomization models.

The present study investigates the response of recent primary breakup models in the presence of an oscillating air flow, and compares them to an experiment realized by Müller and coworkers in 2008. The experiment showed that the oscillating flow field has a significant influence on the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) up to a given frequency. This observation highlights the low-pass filter character of the prefilming airblast atomization phenomenon, which also introduces a significant phase shift on the dynamics of SMD of the generated spray. The models are tested in their original formulations without any calibration in order to assess their robustness versus different experiments in terms of SMD and time-response to an oscillating flow field. Special emphasis is put to identify the advantages and weaknesses of theses models, in order to facilitate their future implementation in CFD codes. It is observed that some models need an additional calibration of the time constant in order to match the time shift observed in the experiment, whereas some others show a good agreement with the experiment without any modification. Finally, it is demonstrated that the low-pass filter character of the breakup phenomenon can be retrieved by considering the history of the local gas velocity, instead of the instantaneous velocity. This might result in a higher simulation fidelity within CFD codes. * geoffroy.chaussonnet@kit.edu † Dr. A. Müller is currently Team leader for sensor systems at JENOPTIK Robot GmbH

The present study investigates the response of recent primary breakup models in the presence of an oscillating air flow, and compares them to an experiment realized by Müller and coworkers in 2008. The experiment showed that the oscillating flow field has a significant influence on the Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) up to a given frequency. This observation highlights the low-pass filter character of the prefilming airblast atomization phenomenon, which also introduces a significant phase shift on the dynamics of SMD of the generated spray. The models are tested in their original formulations without any calibration in order to assess their robustness versus different experiments in terms of SMD and time-response to an oscillating flow field. Special emphasis is put to identify the advantages and weaknesses of theses models, in order to facilitate their future implementation in CFD codes. It is observed that some models need an additional calibration of the time constant in order to match the time shift observed in the experiment, whereas some others show a good agreement with the experiment without any modification. Finally, it is demonstrated that the low-pass filter character of the breakup phenomenon can be retrieved by considering the history of the local gas velocity, instead of the instantaneous velocity. This might result in a higher simulation fidelity within CFD codes. * geoffroy.chaussonnet@kit.edu † Dr. A. Müller is currently Team leader for sensor systems at JENOPTIK Robot GmbH