Experimental and numerical study of droplet breakup in a jet mixer

Abstract

Jet mixers are essential for multiphase jet reactors to achieve efficient mixing, while their design and optimization are limited by insufficient information on multiphase flow within a jet mixer. A numerical and experimental study was conducted on droplet breakup in an orifice jet mixer. First, a numerical method for jet flow was established and validated with the velocity field measured by particle image velocimetry. Droplet dynamics experiments were then carried out on a high-speed microscope platform. The results show that numerous droplets are generated in a single deformation process, resulting in a reduction of breakup time by orders of magnitude compared to traditional theory. Finally, a new breakup model was developed and implemented into OpenFOAM. The prediction of droplet size distribution is greatly improved, with the mean relative deviation of Sauter mean diameter being 6.96 %. This work provides new insights into droplet dynamics in high-energy dissipation fields.