Development of a Backlight Imaging System to Investigate Liquid Breakup in Near-Field Swirl Atomizer

A shadowgraph technique developed in this work aims to investigate the influence of swirl in air-blast atomizer such as the ones adopted in gas turbine engines. In this our initial effort, the system includes a light source, a high-speed camera, a swirl atomizer, a compressed air system, gas and liquid regulators. The light source here is a 700 W continuous LED lamb. A suitable camera is 5 to 10 kHz with a spatial resolution of 10 µm. The preliminary outcome shows that the flow rate significantly affects the spray structure and spray angle. This needs to be investigated further to understand in detailed about micro information of liquid fragments deriving from the liquid jet in atomizing zone when accounting for swirl and/or turbulent conditions and this will be done and reported in our future work. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.