Thermal Power and Fluid Engineering
Example dissertation project
Internal and external flow field of a pressure swirl atomizer with induced acoustic excitation.
Supervisor Mr D Cooper
Pressure swirl atomizers areused in many applicationranging from fuel injection systems in gas turbines to domestic heating oil burners. Over the last 10 years considerable experimental and computational work has been undertaken on measuring various aspects of the internal flow field of a large scale atomizer. Some of the work involved the excitation of the central air core by low frequency acoustic waves and the results were very promising. The proposed project is intended to build upon this previous work and will include the effects on the internal pressure and velocity field, droplet size and breakup length due to the injection of low (Hz) and medium (KHz) frequency acoustic waves into the atomizer swirl chamber.
Measurement techniques to be used will include Laser Doppler Anemometry,
Phase Doppler Anemometry and high speed imaging.