Visualization of Spray Structure at the Outlet of the Micro Orifices

Spray formation occurring at the outlet of short microchannels/micro orifices due to the cavitation phenomenon is of great importance in biomedical and engineering applications. The spray characteristics are affected dramatically by the flow regime in the micro orifice. If properties of the flow are identified in the outlet of the nozzle, the treatment of the spray can be predicted. These properties can be used as boundary conditions. The experimental investigations show that the cavitation phenomenon occurs in the orifice and strongly affects the spray characteristics. However, visualization of the spray at the outlet of the micro orifice is a challenging task, since the phenomena related to the spray are occurred in very small scale and also the region near to the micro orifice is not clear. Therefore there is an urgent need to new and advanced visualization techniques and measurement equipments. In this study, spray formation and atomization, bubble evolution at the outlet of a short microchannel of an inner diameter of 152 μm were experimentally studied at different injection pressures with the use of a high speed visualization system. High speed visualization was performed at four different segments to cover ∼15 mm distance beginning from the microchannel outlet to understand the spray formation mechanism. It was observed that cavitating bubbly flow is strongly affected by injection pressure. Up to an injection pressure of 50 bars bigger size droplets form at the outlet, while beyond 50 bar injection pressure, cavitation erosion of intensified cavitation becomes dominant leading to smaller droplet sizes and a more conical spray. The results showed a good agreement with previous studies. This energy could be exploited in several applications, where destructive effects of bubbly cavitating flows are needed.