‘Apnnt. 1970. LARRY R, EATON AND THOMAS E, HOFFER 269 Experiments on Droplets in Free Fall I: Terminal Velocity and Wall Effects Laxay R. Eaton ann Tuowas E. Horrer Desert Research Insitute, University of Nevada System, Reno (Afanuseript received 15 September 1969, in revised form 5 December 1969) ABSTRACT [A system is desribed for accurately generating droplets of known size in the diameter range 300-500 and measuring th terminal velocity i air. The ertor in terminal velocity is <0.5%, Measurements were made using several diameters of tubing to investigate the elfect of walls on the terminal velocity of droplets, These data are compared with those of other suthors, The wall effect on drag. cotfichnt falls to the 19, level at approximately 70 droplet diameters. 1. Introduction ‘The interaction between droplets, and between drop- lets and particles in clouds, is a problem of primary importance in our understanding of precipitation pro- cesses. To understand these phenomena, itis necessary to know the flow around, for instance, pairs of falling droplets. Such information leads in tum toward de- lineating the forces acting on the particles and thereby determining their importance to collection. One of the primary measurements is the terminal velocity in free fall ‘The terminal velocity of freely falling droplets has been measured by Gunn and Kinzer (1949). The water droplets they used were evaporating in air at 50% rela- tive humidity, thereby introducing small uncertainties. Davies (1945) and Perry (1950) summarized the major- ity of the available data in terms of Reynolds number and drag coefficient. The complexity of the intermed- fate Reynolds number range (1 to 1000) was discussed by Fuchs (1964) and by Happel and Brenner (1965). Experiments of droplet-droplet interactions (other than liquid droplets in air) have been performed by many, including Steinberger ¢f al. (1968), Isaakyan and, Gasparyan (1966), Happel and Pfeffer (1960) and Eveson ef al.(1959). Other observations (Stimson and. Jeffery, 1926; Happel and Brenner, 1965; Fuchs, 1964; ‘Telford et al, 1935; Woods and Mason, 1965) are avail- able about droplet interactions. These all rely on a Knowledge of the terminal velocity in a constrained ftuid (Le,, experimental environment with finite extent in three dimensions). ‘The experiments described here, which were con- ducted in air, were at higher Reynolds numbers than those ordinarily used and yet well within the range of Reynolds numbers encountered in the atmosphere. The ‘three areas discussed are the accurate measurement of Groplet velocity, calibration of terminal velocity, and the evaluation of the effect of a finite distance between, Groplet and surrounding walls. 2. Experimental equipment ‘An accurate terminal velocity measurement can be obtained only if relevant parameters are either con- trolled or monitored. The two most important param- eters to control are the mass of the droplet and turbu- lence. Other important parameters, such as pressure, temperature and humidity, need not be controlled, but ‘must be monitored so that their influence on the velo- city measurement can be computed. Droplets of ethylene glycol (which has a vapor pres- sure about one hundredth of that of water) were used to eliminate evaporation effects. ‘The generation of droplets of uniform mass, with variations of much less ‘than 1%, has been accomplished by refining the tech- niques described by Sweet (1965). Fig. 1 is a drawing, of the droplet gencrator used. Fro, 1, Schematic view of droplet generator (Gpprosimately 231 5 cB).270 JOURNAL OF Optics Point source € Collimated light beam APPLIED METEOROLOGY Vouume 9 Temperature probe Fic, 2, Schematic diagram ofa section ofthe column shovring a light element ‘and the Ser optics, ‘The nozzle oscillates longitudinally (along the direc- tion of fluid flow), with minimal transverse components. Droplets are produced at @ rate of 1000 sec. Normally, they are charged strongly by applying a potential to the charging plates, and deflected to the side by the “deflection plates” shown in Fig, 1. At suitable time intervals, the charging plates are earthed during the release of one droplet from the capillary tip. This nominally uncharged droplet has « charge <10* est, and passes between the deflection plates to enter the fall column. ‘The droplets fall vertically, along almost exactly the same paths, deviating less than a third of a droplet diameter in 3 m of travel. This charging tech- nique permits droplets to be introduced into the column at any desired spaci A 76.mm square plexiglas column 3.7 m in height was constructed. The upper end of the column has a 1-em droplet entrance hole while the lower end is sealed. This, column is insulated with 0.1 m of polystyrene foam and. can be cooled by circulating a coolant through flat copper tubing attached to two sides of the column. The temperature inside the column can be lowered to =20C. ‘There are six thermistor bead temperature probes (WST: matched to +£0.2C) spaced uniformly along the column to monitor the temperature. When the column is sealed with no coolant flowing, it becomes isothermal to within the accuracy of measurement. This stable environmental condition was selected as being the most repeatable and favorable for this study. Under this con- dition, the turbulence was below the level that could be detected visually with smoke or instrumentally with a Thermo-Systems hot-wire anemometer (below 1 cm sec). Flat beams of light traverse the column at 0.30 m intervals, the arrangement being shown in Fig. 2. The light beam provided a pulse of scattered light when a Groplet passes through it, This scattered light falls on well-positioned fiber optics and is transmitted to a photomultiplier tube. All of the fiber optics, one at each Tight beam, are connected to the same photomultiplier, which eliminates the electronic difficulties associated with using individual photomultipliers for each detect- ing position. ‘The distance between the light beams was measured by inserting a strip of dimensionally stable aerial film, under slight tension, vertically through the column. ‘The mercury lights were turned on one at a time, for & very short time. The film was processed and the separa- tion of the exposed areas accurately measured. By repetition and averaging, the separation of the light beams was determined to better than 0.3 mm. The vertical thickness of the light beam was found to beArm 1970 LARRY R. EATON AND THOMAS E. HOFFER am s, e Sey [B06 'v = Poo & )-2_CC/MIN 3 : zt Crem Fano) fimo] 2 - bei Gare) £ S bl _ FA 8 Fes 1: Pecrrer Fuse é G REG « ES + [GENERATOR SEN + G 5 z own i z S Ger Lane. Rare & fee. ecae & 2000 PSIG O10 DEFLECTION Pontes onopeens prgpucen ARE PPR, g 3 | = 8 3 8 5 Ir18en optics 2 EB } 3 s BI g cour & GEpee en Tet fix Be coeeee ren SABER on Je —RBTEES fiddly 8 ‘ADVANCE’ ADDRESS a (POP=8 afCARDS PLOT « Ac. Tare [> SpeoucT ION» lpatir E Funcn 5 ERS ere ‘Fic. 3. Flow diagram showing the processing of the light signal as the droplet falls through the column. clase to 1.5 mm; the usable horizontal width was over Som. ‘The data collection and analyzing system is shown in, Fig. 3. It is of interest to trace a pulse through its processing, starting from the photomultiplier. The sig- nal from the photomultiplier, caused by scattered light falling on the fiber optics, is conditioned and fed to a multichannel analyzer. The analyzer is fed a 0.1 MHz timing signal from a Beckman 6148 counter. The pulses from the photomultiplier step the analyzer from one channel to the next, so that a given channel stores the number of timing cycles, or counts between two pulses from the photomultiplier. Since there are 12 be pieces of information (time intervals) are obt each droplet which falls through the column. The data generated by two or more drops are separated by suit- able processing. ‘Te multichannel analyzer stores $12 interval times, that is, the data for 36 single droplets, plus reference in- formation. When it is full, the data along with appro- priate identification information is transmitted to an on-line PDP-8 computer. While the next data set is being accumulated the computer stores the data on magnetic tape and punched cards. The direct on-line computer link has made it possible to gather sufficient information to greatly reduce errors by averaging the results from many droplets. 3. Measurements of terminal velocity in the column ‘The detection system was based on the premise that, the droplet velocity vs size was highly reproducible. Since this proved true, the instantaneous terminal velo- city can be used to determine the instantaneous size of the droplet and changes in droplet size as they fall through the column. Measurements of terminal velocities for known drop- let sizes were made to “calibrate” the system. ‘A calibration series was run in which the mass of the drops was measured as well as the terminal velocity. ‘The drag coefficients deduced from these measurements as a function of Reynolds number were found to agr within about 2% with those found by several invest gators, as given by Davies (1945).272 JOURNAL OF cali Tame tion data.* DV. @ (mee) Re Go Mass =236C P=680.3 mm Hg Single 3132 1365 2294 2.474 2465 +0009 Double $46 L772 3752 1880 1883 “Looor ‘Tpke 4317 2052 973 Us79 11572 Lo.cor T=22C — Pa6s.9mmHy —-RH=15% Single 3048 1767 38201832 1.895 0.007 Double $74 2254 Glos 1406 1401 to.00s Trine 5004 Dom SLED L228 1219 Loos “Gp is the measured values of the drag coelficents and Go! the ealeulated Free space (eee Section #) values obtained by using Ea. @) ‘The drops leave the generator at speeds close to their terminal velocities, not differing by more than 20% in the worst case, Thus, the speed of the drop is within ~1% of terminal when the drop passes through the second light. ‘The separation of the neighboring light beams being known to 0.1%, with the timing accuracy available, the basicmeasurement over the last 1.7 m of fall is correct to within 0.04%, corresponding to about 0.1% in mass in this droplet size range, where Vir varies roughly as r Since the mass of the droplets is ~3X10-* gm, the corresponding error in droplet mass is ~3X10-F gm. Consequently, the uniform performance of the droplet generating system was most easily judged from the observed minimal dispersion in measured terminal velocities ‘A rough experiment with a surface-to-volume ratio within a factor of 10 of that of a typical droplet showed that under ambient laboratory conditions ethylene glycol absorbs water at a rate such that the total mass increases by 1-2% per hour. Since the droplets were exposed to ambient conditions for <3 sec, the absorp- tion of water vapor from the air could be neglected. ‘The liquid, ethylene glycol, used in these experiments is similar to water in several respects. Its properties are listed, for example, in the Merck Chemical Handbook. Under ordinary conditions, the density of ethylene glycol can be’ taken at (1.3183-0.00077) gm cm, where T is the temperature (°C). It has a surface tension of 484 dyn cm, and a viscosity of 210 centipoise Deformation of a droplet, defined as the departure of the drop from spherical, depends upon the surface tension. A droplet of water falling at its terminal velo city is deformed by 1% when the droplet diameter is, 1000 4 (Hallett, private communication). The surface tension of ethylene glycol is less than that of water, and 1% deformation should occur with a droplet size of 875 u diameter if the drop is falling at its terminal velocity. ‘The mean droplet mass was determined by weighing a known number of drops (~10"). A positive displace- APPLIED METEOROLOGY Vouunee 9 ment pump was used to determine the flow for this purpose. Initially, it was proposed to use this pump for the whole experiment. However, due to small imperfec- tions, the flow rate from the pump has a small sinusoidal variation, The measured values of Vr for individual drops had a standard deviation of 0.6%; when 1000 Aroplets were averaged in a “run” with a given setting of the generator, this fell to 0.2% between runs. In this size range, where Vr is roughly proportional to r, this, corresponds to a dispersion of about 0.6% in mean mass of 1000 droplets from one run to another. With a given setting of the droplet generator, multiples of a single droplet mass were obtained by causing two or three drops to coalesce as they left the ‘generator. This was accomplished by varying the length of the charge neutralizing pulse on the “charging plates” (Fig. 1) so that two or three consecutive drop- lets fell into the column. ‘These consecutive droplets usually coalesced, forming one droplet of higher mass, hence the reference to single, double and triple mass in Table 1 ‘Two sets of calibration data are given in Table 1 obtained on two separate days. A fixed fluid flow and generator frequency were used to determine the mass of the average drop in each set of data. Each row of data corresponds to means of 36 droplets released at 3-sec intervals (>6 m separation). Using the fact that at terminal velocity the drag equals the weight of the droplet, the values of Re and Co corresponding to each drop mass were computed by methods based on those of Davies (1945) and Perry (1950). Davies compared the results of a number of investi- gators to deduce the dependence of Cy on Re. Davies equation for Re>4 was taken as a reference and Fig. 4 shows the departure from this equiation found in the present data as measured from Davies’ values is 2%. Davies data were also refitted by a least-squares tech- nique (Sigma-7 computer) and the resulting equation differed to some extent with that given by Davies. This new fit is also given in Fig. 4 In Section 4, experiments related to wall effects are discussed. These are found to confirm the expression of Fayon and Happel (1960). Using their results, it appears that the values of Cp found in the column ex- periments were 0.6% greater than in free fall, due to the influence of the column walls. The next to the last column of Table 1 shows estimates of the value of Co for a sphere in an infinite fluid, Co’, corrected for the wall effect using Eq. (2) of Section 4. 4, Wall effect Discrepancies among experimental results can often be attributed in part to the influence of the surrounding walls. The difference in velocity of a sphere falling axially in a cylinder due to changing the ratio of the sphere diameter to that of the cylinder has been dis- cussed by Ladenburg (1907) as well as others (seea a & omy DAVIES (Given Equation) 50 es (ete : we = | oo Lul y meson Fic, 4 The data of Table 1 fed witha least-square curve, ite departure from the values of Co given by Davies (1945), together with corresponding departures from the results of other authors, Happel and Brenner, 1965). Most of the experiments which have investigated this phenomena have used liquid media and rigid spheres. In this experiment the resisting medium is air and the sphere a liquid droplet. Glass tubing 1.5 m in length of various diameters in the range of 2-10 mm was positioned on a gimbal in the central part of the fall column. After leaving the genera- tor, the drops fell through the essentially unrestricted column for 1.4 m, then through the glass tubing, and finally again through the column. The droplets were positioned to fall in the center of the tubing within 150y. This was accomplished by ‘mounting the generator on a micrometer h determining the horizontal center of the tubing with respect to the falling droplets. It should be noted here that consecutive droplets released 6 m apart fell verti- cally within a third of a diameter of each other. This, in itself, is an indication of the stability and reproduci- bility of the droplet generation system. No data on the droplet velocity could be obtained while the droplet was inside the tubing due to scattering of the light beam by the glass. Within the glass tubing, the approach of the droplet to its final velocity could not be determined, though this can be approximated by using the other data which were taken, In the last section of the column, the acceleration of the droplet as it approached its terminal velocity could be computed. ‘The tubing ended immediately above a light beam and there were three more measuring positions below this. A polynomial fit was obtained for each data set using the information from these positions. A data set consisted of the measurements of 48 droplets released at 3.sec intervals (~6 m apart). These equations are applicable only to that time span for which they are fitted. By way of example for the 2-mm glass tubing, 419 diameter drop, the equation is Z=0.082+178.51—30.88—29.568, (1) ‘The accuracy of measurement of the terminal velo- city Vr depends partly on having a sufficient fall- distance available to approach very close to Vr. By graphical methods on a plot of Z vs f, using equations like (1), a value of 0.20 m was obtained for the distance that a droplet traveled while the quantity (Y—Vx) de- dlines by 1/e, ie, one “distance constant.” The total fall distance (above and within the column) to the second light beam is 0.5 m; that is, about two and one- half distance constants, corresponding to a reduction of (V=Vr) by a factor of e™. This measure of the relaxa-274 Tantx 2. The experimentally determined parameters fora de JOURNAL OF APPL IED METEOROLOGY Vous op falling axially vbreugh a cylinder. The experimental data ate ‘compared to the relationship of Fayon and Happel (1960) in calumns 8 and 9 “Tubing {side Diameter Experimental data Glass tubing data diameter ‘droplet Ys vp * Pee cont nm) @ (ems) Re Co femsee) Cot Cott diference Ta230C PoOCU2mmig —-RUM1S% aos anna 190.1 42st 1m 1768 1980 2.128 +0 Ta2IC — PaO&SmmHy RHA 1% 182 404 1930 4530 1922 1599 16 1.689 ~o1 582 S13 mat os ris 230.2 1380 1383 +18 Ta24C — P=6366mmHg —-RH=15% 10st 4034 1813 40.16 L778 1797 1816 1.830 +08 wer 502 Bis oa? ti 2955 108 as tos 1067 543 2665 B44 rst 2628 129 tar 202 ‘Present measurements, ‘++ From Fayon and Happel tion distance was used to determine the maximum dis- tance a droplet must fall in order to reach essentially terminal velocity. ‘The cubic equation for each experimental condition, was differentiated and ¢ set equal to zero. This gives the speed of the drop as it left the glass tubing. These values and the computed drag coefficient inside the tubing are given in columns 6 and 7 of Table 2. Fayon and Happel (1960) gave a relationship which separates the inertial and wall effects on the drag coefficients, ie, 1 12104 (7/4) 42. gaol Ca +e} @ Cs where F is the drag force experienced, r the sphere radius, Ae the radius of the clyinder, Ca the drag coeffi- dont forthe droplet iit were n an faite medium, and Cs the drag coefficient expected by Stokes law. ‘MeNownet a. (1948), ina liquid, rigid-sphere expert ment, obtained excellent agreement with this formula up toe Reynolds number of 40, The data prevented here tte in good agreement with (2) except for the 2mm tubing. In this case a variation >2% was observed in the diameter of the glass tubing. over its length as sampled at four points The variations in diameter are probably larger than 2%, accounting for a significant Porton of the exor. The variations ia the other tbls tere much smaller Tt is reasonable to assume from this study that (2) can be applied at Reynolds numbers at least as high as. ‘those used. It also appears that there is no difference between the results obtained. in liquidwolld sphere experiments and an experiment conducted inal with & Figuid droplet (provided deformation does not take place). Fy oxnve)=[ Caleulation using (2) shows that even for the large droplet diameter to column diameter ratio used in this study, an error of ~0.6% is expected in Cp. Since, for a given sized drop, VreCo1%, the terminal velocities measured in the column should be about 0.3% below those in free fall 5. Summary ‘An accurate method of droplet size determination using droplet velocity has been described along with some calibration data. Tt has also been shown experimentally with droplets that the effect of a surrounding cylinder on the fall velocity of a sphere follows the expression of Fayon and Happel out to Reynolds numbers slightly in excess cof 80 (550 u drops). Eq. (2) indicates that for laboratory experimentation to be uninfluenced by a wall at the 1% level, the ratio of the diameter of the sphere to the diameter of the constraining tube must be at least 1/70. Acknowledgments. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Dr. Patrick Squires for his many helpful discussions. They would also like to acknowledge the ingenuity and ability of Mr. Clarence Fought, Mr. Bob Laird, and Mr. Joe Calabrese who built the major part of the apparatus. ‘This research was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under Contract Nowe 4945(00) NRO 82 226. REFERENCES Davies, C. N., 1945: Definitive equations for the uid resistance ‘of spheres. Proc Plye. Soe. (London), 81, 259-270. Eveson, G. F., E. W. Hall and S. G. 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