Analysis of Liquid Jet Breakup in One- and Two-Phase Flows

The phenomenon of breakup of a jet into drops has been applied mainly to separation technologies in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and metallurgical industries. The paper deals with the experimental analysis directed at the breakup of polymer solutions flowing through an orifice nozzle. The analysis of the breakup and atomization of a liquid jet by a high-speed gas jet is presented. Additionally, non-Newtonian effects on the breakup of the liquid jet into drops were studied using the microphotography method. In the experiments, various aqueous solutions of polyacrylamide were used. The polymer solutions studied were power-law fluids. Analysis of the photographs of the jet breakup showed that the length of the jets depends on the liquid and gas flow rates and on the concentration of the polymer used. High-molecular-weight polymers added to a solvent lead to changes in the rheological properties of the liquid and the breakup length of the jet.