Experimental investigation on the spray performance of industrial swirl nozzle assisted by ion wind

A method for improving the swirl nozzle spray performance using electric field is proposed. A pair of symmetrical needle electrodes is arranged perpendicular to the fuel injection direction. The influence of the electrode height and distance, along with that of the voltage between electrode pair on spray morphology are studied. The results show that when the electrodes are arranged at the fuel-film breakup height, the ion wind shortens the liquid film penetration length and increases the spray angle. The average fuel drop size is reduced by up to 35.8%. The distance between the electrodes also affects the atomization performance.

Automated summary

A method is proposed to improve the performance of swirl nozzle spray using electric field. A pair of symmetrical needle electrodes is arranged perpendicular to the fuel injection direction. The influence of electrode height, distance, and voltage on spray morphology is studied. The results show that arranging the electrodes at the fuel-film breakup height can reduce the average fuel drop size by up to 35.8% and affect the atomization performance.