The Effect of Non-Newtonian Fluid and Flow Conditions on the Instability of an Annular Liquid Sheet
Eva M. Martín del Valle, Edgar P. Herrero and Miguel A. Galán, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Salamanca, P/ Los Caidos 1-5, Salamanca, Spain

A temporal stability analysis was carried out to model the atomization of a swirling viscous annular liquid sheet emanating from an air-blast atomizer subject to inner and outer inviscid swirling air streams. The dimensionless dispersion equation that governs the instability of a viscous Non-Newtonian annular liquid sheet under swirling air streams was derived. In order to investigate the effects of the ratio liquid/ gas flow on the maximum growth rate and its corresponding unstable wave number, numerical solutions of the dispersion equation, under a wide range of viscosities and flow conditions were obtained.

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Poster Session in Fluid Mechanics

The Preliminary Program for 2006 Annual Meeting