Disintegration of Liquid Droplets of High Concentration Coal-Water Slurry by Air Flow

Experiments on the disintegration of coal-water slurry (CWM) drops by parallel air flow have been carried out in order to clarify the disintegrating mechanism of CWM using a rectangular wind tunnel. Experiments were conducted with varying kinds of liquid and coal concentrations of CWM. From the experiments the following results were obtained. Liquid atomization processes are classified into three types of disintegration, namely, separation-wise, ligament-wise and dropwise disintegration. Generated CWM spray is composed of irregular and spherical particles. Irregular particles increase as air velocity increases and they are mostly generated by separation-wise and ligament-wise disintegration. On the other hand spherical particles are mostly generated by dropwise disintegration. Finally, a model of the disintegrating mechanism, which can well explain the formation mechanism of these particles, was proposed.