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Sensitivity of atomization characteristic to operation conditions for air-assisted atomizers in snow-makers.

Author(s) : WANG R., ZHANG B., XU R., XING M., ZHANG H., YAN G., WU H.

Type of article: IJR article

Summary

Air-assisted atomizers play a crucial role in generating nuclei and promoting heterogeneous nucleation in outdoor snow-makers. The change of operation conditions for snow-makers leads to a marked variation of atomization characteristic of air-assisted atomizers, which directly influences the nuclei generating and snow-making efficiency. This paper investigates the sensitivity of air-assisted atomizers’ atomization characteristic to operation conditions in snow-makers. For this purpose, a transparent device is designed, structured and tested. The water-air mixing process was presented, and the atomization behaviors of two air-assisted atomizers with different mixing modes were compared in order to find an appropriate mixing mode for outdoor snow-makers. Results show that the spray cone angle first goes up and then falls down with the increase of air-water pressure ratio, while Sauter mean diameter (SMD) decreases monotonically. The unbalanced air-water pressure ratio results in the failure of atomization because of the choking phenomenon. Inside the air-assisted atomizers, there are four stable mixing patterns in sequence, i.e., full water, churning flow, annular flow and full air. With the variation of the mixing pattern, the interaction between water and air changes, which causes different atomization characteristics under different operation conditions. Another interesting finding is that the atomizers with the mixing mode in which air and water are injected independently have remarkably better performance in avoiding choking situation and improving mass flow rate, which can be a better choice for outdoor snow-makers.

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Pages: 146-154

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Details

  • Original title: Sensitivity of atomization characteristic to operation conditions for air-assisted atomizers in snow-makers.
  • Record ID : 30031540
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: International Journal of Refrigeration - Revue Internationale du Froid - vol. 149
  • Publication date: 2023/05
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2022.12.016

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