Experimental investigation on cellular breakup of a planar liquid sheet from an air-blast nozzle

The cellular breakup phenomenon is investigated experimentally for a planar liquid sheet from an air-blast nozzle. The dominant sinuous wave growing spatially downstream forms complicated cellular structures of perforated thin films and surrounding ligaments. Several characteristic parameters are measured from photographic images and compared with linear temporal analysis. The dominant wavelength is proportional to the inverse square of the relative velocity between air and liquid. The estimated breakup time matches the growth time of the most unstable wave, while the breakup length corresponds to a product of breakup time and liquid velocity. Numerical simulation shows a substantially reduced mean effective velocity near flow reattachment region of the air stream. Air turbulence seems to play a major role on initial perturbations of cellular breakup in the given nozzle configuration. The measured spatial growth rates are always less than linear predictions due to deviation from the linear regime at higher amplitudes. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.