Internally mixing twin-fluid Y-jet atomizers are widely used in coal-fired thermal power plants for start-up, oil-fired thermal power plants, and industrial boilers. The flow through internally mixing Y-jet atomizers is numerically modeled using the compressible Navier-Stokes equations; wall modeled large eddy simulations (WMLES) are used to resolve the turbulence with large eddy simulations whereas the Prandtl mixing length model is used for modeling the subgrid scale structures, which are affected by geometric and operational parameters. Moreover, the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method is used to capture the development and fragmentation of the liquid-gas interface within the Y-jet atomizer. The numerical results are compared with correlations available in the open literature for the pressure drop; further results are presented for the multiphase flow regime maps available for vertical pipes. The results show that the mixing point pressure is strongly dependent on the mixing port diameter to air port diameter ratio, specifically for gas to liquid mass flow-rate ratio (GLR) in the range 0.1 < GLR < 0.4; the mixing port length moderately affects the mixing point pressure while the angle between mixing and liquid ports is found not to have an appreciable effect. Moreover, it is found that the vertical pipe multiphase flow regime maps in the literature could be applied to the flow through the mixing port of the twin-fluid Y-jet atomizer. The main flow regimes found under the studied operational conditions are annular and wispy-annular flow.

The atomization mechanism of the gas-liquid multiphase flow through internally mixing twin-fluid Yjet atomizer has been studied by examining both the internal and external flow patterns. Superheated steam and Light Fuel Oil (LFO) are used as working fluids. The flow is numerically modeled using the compressible Navier-Stokes equations; hybrid Large Eddy Simulation approach through Wall Modeled Large Eddy Simulations (WMLES) is used to resolve the turbulence with the Large Eddy Simulations, whereas the Prandtl Mixing Length Model is used for modeling the subgrid-scale structures, which are affected by operational parameters. VOF-to-DPM transition mechanism is utilized along with dynamic solution-adaptive mesh refinement to predict the initial development and fragmentation of the gas-liquid interface through Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) formulations on a sufficiently fine mesh, while Discrete Phase Model (DPM) is used to predict the dispersed part of the spray on the coarser grid. Two operational parameters, namely gas-to-liquid mass flow rate ratio (GLR) and liquid-to-gas momentum ratio are compared; the latter is found to be an appropriate operational parameter to describe both the internal flow and atomization characteristics. It is confirmed that the variation in the flow patterns within the mixing-port of the atomizer coincides with the variation of the spatial distribution of the spray drops.