Experimental and numerical investigation on hydrodynamic of spiral atomizer and presenting of compatible solution parameters with spray characteristics

The use of spiral atomizers is one of the common and appropriate methods to produce liquid sprays. In this paper, we have investigated the performance of these single-base atomizers experimentally. Then, the effects of two important geometrical parameters in these type of atomizers, orifice diameter and spiral angle as quantities that have dominant effects were studied. After this, the numerical simulation of spray was conducted using the open-source OpenFOAM code and helping of experimental results, parameters in numerical models compatible with these results are presented in the low pressure range. Experimental results show that decreasing spiral angle and output orifice diameter, increases Sauter mean diameter of droplets. In addition, the numerical simulation of spiral atomizer predicts velocity and size distribution of spray droplets with good accuracy that shows validity of the experimental parameters used in numerical models. In this paper using experimental results, numerical model parameters that are compatible with hollow cone spray of these atomizers have presented that with the presented parameters, Hereinafter simulation of hollow cone spray in pressure range of this paper could be done independent of the experimental results.