Effect of elevated pressure on air-assisted primary atomization of coaxial liquid jets: Basic research for entrained flow gasification

Highly resolved numerical simulations have been conducted for a generic, coaxial air-blast atomizer designed for fundamental research of entrained flow gasification processes. Objective of the work is to gain a detailed knowledge of the influence of elevated reactor pressure on the primary atomization behaviour of high-viscous liquid jets. In agreement with measured breakup morphology and breakup regimes proposed in literature, the simulations yield a pulsating mode instability of liquid jet, along with disintegrations of fibre-type liquid fragments for different pressures. From the mechanism point of view, the breakup process has been shown to be triggered by concentric, axisymmetric ring vortices, which disturb the liquid jet surface in a first stage and penetrate further into the intact core, leading to interfacial instabilities and pinch-off of liquid ligaments. The liquid jet breaks up faster at elevated pressure, leading to a shorter core length L-C. The calculated exponent (b approximate to -0.5) of the power law for fitting the decrease of L-C with p agrees well with measured correlations from literature in terms of varied momentum flux ratio M and Weber number We(G), although water jets, atmospheric pressure and different air-assisted, external mixing nozzles were used in these works. Therefore, the effect of elevated pressure is equivalent to that of increased M or We(G), which scale linearly with p or the gas density for the current setup. The specific kinetic energy of liquid k(L) has been found to be increased with p, which is particularly pronounced in the high frequency range. A first-order estimate has been proposed, which can be used for the evaluation of liquid kinetic energy or droplet velocity within the spray. The results have been validated by simulations with twice-refined resolution, yielding a grid-independence behaviour with respect to the primary breakup characteristics. However, the follow-up processes with secondary breakup and spray dispersion are reproduced better by using the finer grid.