An important characteristic of sprays is their statistical distribution of droplet sizes. Knowledge of the droplet distribution is particularly important for pesticide applications because droplet size affects droplet trajectory, probability of contact with foliage, and the biological dose to target pests. This work describes an experimental study of an aerial spray application in a wind tunnel environment at realistic flight speeds (67 m/s) using a full-scale rotary atomizer turning at 8600 rpm. Comparative measurements of water droplet velocity and diameter were made a 3 component Artium Phase Doppler Interferometer (PDI) and a Sympatec Helos Vario Laser Diffraction (LD) instrument. Distance from the atomizer to the measurement cross section was varied to observe the effects of the atomizer wake on the results.

Volume Subject Area:
3rd Joint US-European Fluids Engineering Summer Meeting
Topics:
Sprays, Drops, Diffraction, Flight, Instrumentation, Interferometers, Lasers, Probability, Statistical distributions, Trajectories (Physics), Wakes, Water, Wind tunnels
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