Effect of bubble cutting on spray characteristics and dust control performance in the effervescent atomization

Effervescent atomization performance depends on the bubble size inside the mixing chamber, consequently influencing the spray dust control performance. This paper proposes an optimization of atomization quality and dust control performance by incorporating a bubble cutter in the atomizer mixing chamber. The effects of the bubble cutter aperture on spray characteristics and flow characteristics were experimentally investigated under different operating conditions. Experimental results showed that Sauter means diameter (SMD) decreases with increasing injection pressure and gas-liquid mass flow ratio (GLR). Furthermore, SMD initially increased and then decreased by reducing the aperture of the bubble cutter from 500 mu m to 80 mu m. In particular, high injection pressure (Pi =0.6 MPa) and low gas-liquid mass flow ratio (GLR=0.09) strengthened the effects of the bubble cutter aperture on SMD. Moreover, bubble cutter causes a contiguous concentrated droplet size distribution, but it has little effect on droplet velocity. Ultimately, the optimal bubble cutter aperture on the efficiency of respirable dust control efficiencies was theoretically calculated. The dust control efficiency is a maximum at the bubble cutter with an aperture of 230 mu m for the effervescent atomizer in this paper. Spray dust control efficiency reaches 93.15 %, which effectively solves the problem of high dust concentration pollution in the mechanized working environment.