74th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 21, 2021 — November 23, 2021)

V0060: Atomization of the optimally disturbed liquid jets

Authors

• Hanul Hwang, Stanford University, Center for Turbulence Research
• Dokyun Kim, Cascade Technologies, Inc.
• Parviz Moin, Stanford University, Center for Turbulence Research

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2021.GFM.V0060

Atomization is a fragmentation process of liquid stream into small droplets and is utilized in a wide range of applications, such as internal combustion engine, ink-jet printer, and medical nebulizer. Given atomization technology’s broad impact, enhancing its efficiency is a crucial need. Our study investigates atomization of liquid jets initiated by the optimal initial condition, which maximizes the perturbation energy transfer from the mean flow to the surface tension energy. We demonstrate the multi-phase Orr-mechanism as a realizable process for liquid jet atomization. We find that optimizing the perturbation significantly improves atomization of liquid jets, even with small amount of perturbation energy.