Breakup dynamics of a liquid droplet through high-speed airflows

The atomization of liquid droplets through the interaction of aerodynamic forces has been widely exploited in the fields of liquid jet atomization, agricultural spraying, combustion engines, and aerospace applications.  The dynamics of droplet-breakup process is classified into two phases: i) initial shock interaction ii) droplet breakup regimes. Phase I presents the initial impact of shock-wave with the droplet and formation of reflected, transmitted, and refracted waves adjacent to the droplet surface. Phase II includes the deformation and breakup of the droplet process. In phase I, the droplet holds in its original shape, where the changes in surrounding flow conditions were influenced by the external shock-induced air-flows the shear-induced breakup process. In the present study, droplet deformation, break-up patterns (such as multi-bag, SIE) were investigated using visualization techniques of shadowgraph and schlieren. The range of We numbers was applicable in the above-mentioned applications for convenient atomization of the liquid droplets. This study idealizes the case of complex methodologies involved in the manufacture of metal powder through closed coupled atomization.