Visualization of water droplet deformation and breakup in a continuously accelerating flow field

Abstract

[EN] A new specific direct illumination technique is proposed for studying the deformation and breakup process of droplets that are exposed to a continuously increasing flow field. This type of flow field is in contrast to the traditional shock-tube experiments where droplets are suddenly exposed to a constant high airstream. In order to generate a continuously accelerated flow field the rotating arm facility at INTA is used. Droplets are allowed to fall in the path of an incoming airfoil mounted at the end of a rotating arm. Under certain conditions, these droplet deform and breakup before impinging on the airfoil. The incoming airfoil is a key element in the illumination technique. Droplets of 0.8 mm of diameter immersed in the flow field generated by an airfoil model of chord 0.690m approaching at 80 m/s were chosen for this study and were found to undergo a breakup process similar to the bag and stamen breakup found in the literature. Each of the stages at this type of breakup process was investigated by means of this new direct illumination technique and a high resolution camera. These images were compared to those images obtained using shadowgraph illumination technique and a high speed camera under the same conditions. Five different stages were studied and characterized. The final objective in this study was to visualize and identify fluid structures that occur during the deformation and breakup process in a continuously accelerated flow field in order to develop and fine tune physical-mathematical models.