Coupled study of the film and spray on a basic annular prefilming airblast atomizer

One way to increase efficiency and reduce pollution in transport and energetic domain is designing fuel injectors with better atomization. In this work, experiments were performed on a prefilming airblast atomizer often used in gas turbine engines. For this purpose, a new injector was designed to visualize the prefilming zone and the primary atomization together. The flow configuration corresponds to an annular liquid film sheared by inner high velocity airflows. High speed Shadowgraphy was used to observe film and spray, liquid film frequency, wave velocity and wave deformation, primary breakup regime. Finally, a link between liquid film and the primary atomization are shown first qualitatively and after quantitatively.