A note on charged capillary jet breakup of conducting liquids:: experimental validation of a viscous one-dimensional model

Controlled charged capillary jet breakup of conducting liquids with different viscosities and applied voltages are experimentally analysed in this work. Careful measurements of droplets size and charge transported by the main and satellite droplets have been carried out. The experimental results are compared with those obtained by an augmented one-dimensional Lee model (Lopez-Herrera et al. 1999). Theory and experiments show a remarkable agreement, which validates the rather inexpensive one-dimensional models as suitable predicting tools for scientific and engineering applications from electrospraying to charged jet printing over other sophisticated, more expensive three-dimensional models. Our results show that satellite droplets tend to undergo Coulombic rupture even in the case of very moderate electrification levels when the Ohnesorge number is sufficiently large.