Droplet size control in liquid jet breakup

A Boundary Element Method (BEM) has been developed to investigate the nonlinear evolution of the surface of liquid jets injected from circular orifices under unsteady inflow conditions. For fixed wavelength perturbations, the model predicts the formation of main and satellite droplets. The size of the droplets is affected by changes in the perturbation wavelength, perturbation magnitude and Weber number. Satellite droplet velocities are less than main droplet velocities due to the sequential shedding of droplets from the orifice. Using this information, one can determine the likelihood of droplet recombinations downstream of the initial pinching event. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.