Proceedings of ASME 2014 Gas Turbine India Conference

GTIndia2014
December 15-17, 2014, New Delhi, India

GT India 2014-8148

Axial and Radial Variation of Spray Characteristics of a Small-

Scale Simplex Atomizer
Muthuselvan G1*, Muralidhara H S2,Vinod kumar vyas 3, Jeyaseelan AR4, Rajeshwari N5
Combustion Laboratory, Propulsion Division, CSIR – NAL, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560037, India
* mechmuthu1@nal.res.in
Anurag Pradhan 6 Chaithra P 7, Prathana P 8, Mohammed Sameer 9
Visvesvaraya Technical University, Belgaum

Abstract: Simplex atomizer is widely used in the liquid fuel spray cone angle. SMD variation along the radial direction of
combustion devices in aerospace and power generation spray showed more uniform droplet diameter distribution for
industries. An experimental work was conducted, to study lower atomizer constant (K) configurations. Reducing the
variation of SMD and droplet size distribution along axial and atomizer constant improves the atomization quality more
radial directions of the spray for different injection pressures. effectively than increasing the injection pressure.
Malvern spray analyzer is used in the present investigation.
Four different atomizer configurations of increasing atomizer 1. INTRODUCTION
constant (K) are examined using water and kerosene. Spray
Simplex atomizer consists of swirl chamber,
cone angle is measured for different configurations at different
tangential port and exit orifice as shown in figure – 1. The
injection pressures (up to 30 bar) using image processing
liquid is forced under high pressure to enter the swirl chamber
technique. In the case of atomizer with lower K, spray cone
through tangential ports. The tangentially introduced fluid
angle continuously increases with injection pressure. In the
forms a rotating flow inside the chamber. The swirl motion of
case of atomizer with higher K, initially spray cone angle
the liquid pushes it close to the wall and creates a zone of low
increases significantly, but remains almost constant after 16
pressure along the center line. An air core is formed along the
bar. Variation of SMD and droplet size distribution along axial
centerline, as a result of this high swirl velocity of the liquid.
direction of the spray is compared between water and kerosene
The formation of this central air core is the most important
spray. SMD variation along the axial direction of spray clearly
phenomenon in a simplex nozzle. Air core size determines the
shows the continuous brakup of droplets along axial direction
effective flow area and the coefficient of discharge, which is
of the spray. In the case of water spray, SMD rapidly
one of the important performance parameters of the nozzle.
decreases along the axial direction up to 30 mm from the
Due to the tangential velocity of flow inside the swirl chamber
orifice exit, and gradually decreases up to 120 mm. In the case
the liquid comes out of the orifice in the form of a thin film.
of kerosene spray, SMD rapidly decreases along the axial
The thin film escaping the exit orifice is rather unstable and
direction up to 40 mm from the orifice exit, after that SMD
the slightest fluctuation will cause distortions when it is in
fluctuates along the axial direction up to 100 mm from the
contact with the air. As the amplitude becomes so large that
orifice exit. This fluctuation is due to evaporation of smaller
the surface tension can no longer withhold the breaking force,
droplets (50 microns) of kerosene. Span also continuously
the film will rupture into ligaments. Traveling in the air, the
fluctuates after 40 mm from the orifice exit in the case of
ligaments will further collapse into droplets. T.Marchione et al
kerosene spray. Variation of SMD and droplet size distribution
[1] focused on the behavior of kerosene spray produced by a
along radial direction of the spray is compared for different
commercial pressure swirl atomizer in terms of mean diameter
injection pressure and configurations of simplex atomizer. It
distributions, velocity component profiles and cone angle
clearly shows the presence of fine droplets at the center and
variations over time. Important results concerning fluctuating
larger droplets at the edge of the spray. Increase in injection
behavior of spray have been identified, and a preliminary
pressure, increases the disruptive aerodynamic force, which
investigation into frequency domain has been conducted. This
reduces the radial peak value of SMD and widens the radial
has got important practical implication. Mean cone angle has
profile. With decrease in atomizer constant (K), swirl strength
been estimated and results have been compared with imaging
inside the swirl chamber increases, which in turn increases the
analysis and were found to substantially coincide. K.U.Reddy
et al [2] found that spray cone angle increases monotonically
with injection pressures, finally leading to fully developed
hollow cone regime. The discharge coefficient decreases with
increasing Reynolds number (Re) and at higher Re, it is almost
independent of Re. Also found that, with increase in injection
pressure, drop-size spectrum becomes narrower and the spray
drop size spectrum gets broader with increasing in axial
distance. They plotted SMD variation along radial direction at
different height from the orifice exit and found that drops
distributed radially from smaller drops at the center of the
spray to larger drops at the edge. Larger droplets penetrate
radially farther than smaller droplets due to higher inertia. Figure1. Schematic view of simplex atomizer
A.Datta et al [3] conducted a numerical work to predict air 2. CONFIGURATION DETAILS
core diameter of pressure swirl nozzle. It was observed that
with an increase in the nozzle flow rate at its lower range, Atomizer constant (K) is defined as ratio of the total
there occurs a sharp increase in the air core diameter and spray port area to product of swirl chamber diameter and orifice
cone angle, but a sharp decrease in the coefficient of diameter. Four different configurations of simplex atomizer
discharge. But all these variables become independent of flow have been chosen to represent increasing value of simplex
rate at its higher range. They also found that, decrease in inlet atomizer constant (K). The first three configurations have
port area increases the strength of the swirling motion by same orifice exit diameter, with increasing port area. Fourth
increasing the tangential velocity of injection to the nozzle. configuration is having smaller orifice diameter and four
The formation of air core is the consequence of a reduction in tangential ports. Dimensions of four different simplex
pressure near the nozzle axis because of swirling flow inside atomizer configurations are shown in table – 1.
it. Due to the formation of air core and existence of high Variables Case –1 Case – 2 Case – 3 Case – 4
tangential velocity at nozzle orifice, the spray cone is high. So
atomizer with lower port area produces spray with higher cone do (mm) 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.75
angle. R Kumara Gurubaran et al [4] investigated prefilming
airblast atomizer, measured cone angle using flow lo (mm) 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
visualization by planar Mie scattering performed for different Ds (mm) 4 4 4 4
air–liquid ratios showed that the spray cone angle increases
Ls (mm) 8 8 8 8
with increase in the air pressure drop across the atomizer. Also
found that, dispersion of the liquid in the continuous medium Np 2 2 3 4
is delayed with increase in the liquid mass-flow rate and only Dp (mm) 0.75 0.85 1 0.85
droplets of very less SMD are present in the center of the
spray. The planar spray velocity field measurements showed K 0.252 0.33 0.636 0.747
the entrainment of the droplets in the central toroidal
recirculation zone of the swirler. Instantaneous velocity Table 1 the dimensional details of four configurations used
vectors of the spray field showed the entrainment of droplets
in the vortical structures. The velocity measurements show 3. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
that the strong swirl flow from the atomizing device has its The principle behind the laser diffraction technique
maximum vigour only beyond 30 mm downstream from the of particle size determination is that the spatial distribution of
exit. Ashraf A. Ibrahim et al [5] predicted breakup length of scattered light is a function of the droplet size distribution of
liquid sheet by computational work. They obtained shorter the sample of consideration. Larger particle diffract light to
breakup length at elevated air injection pressure. The effect of smaller angles, whereas smaller particles diffract light to
elevated ambient pressure on atomizer internal flow field and larger angles. Malvern spray analyzer has 10mm diameter,
sheet breakup is investigated. A decrease in air core diameter 5mW Helium-Neon laser beam of 632.8nm wavelength. With
is obtained at higher ambient pressure. Mustapha Chaker et al 300mm optical lens, spray diameter from 0.1 to 1000 micron
[6], found a large variation in drop-size and its distribution sizes can be measured. The Malvern instrument for light
with the location of measurement. It has been observed that, scattering measurements consists of the following scheme:
droplet size is a strong function of location of the there is an optical bench, above which the spray to be
measurement. Smallest drop sizes are found in the centre analyzed (Figure 2) is delivered. The relative position of the
of the plume and also these smaller drops evaporate quickly, spray can be adjusted using a traverse mechanism. The spray
leaving only the larger droplets as axial distance increases. In is delivered between the two important functional modules of
the radial direction, droplet size increases towards the edge of the instrument, the transmitter-receiver pair, along with the
the plume because the small droplets quickly follow the guards to prevent impurities or liquid droplets settling on the
airflow and move to the centre while the larger droplets glass (Figure 2). The transmitter emits the He-Ne light of
maintain their initial trajectories and stay in the edge of the wavelength 632.8 nm which passes through the spray cone
plume. and the path it illuminates undergo light scattering and
produce scattering patterns. The scattered light is focused by
the focusing lens into a Fourier arrangement which is picked
up by the sensor array. The angle at which a particle diffracts
light is inversely proportional to its size. The detector array is
made up of over thirty sensors, each of which dynamically
collects the light scattered by a particular range of angles. The
information is in terms of intensity, hence transducers converts
this into electrical signals. This is stored and processed by the
analysis software called Spraytec. Figure 3 shows intensity of
scattered light received at different detector for various
injection pressures. Increase in injection pressure produces
large number of smaller droplets which is shown in figure 4.
Presence of smaller droplets in the spray diffracts light to
larger angles. So at higher injection pressure detectors located
away from the center (10 – 25) receives higher intensity
shown in the figure 3. At 2 bar injection pressure, the spray
constitutes higher number of larger droplets, which diffracts
light to smaller angles. So at 2 bar injection pressure detectors
located near the center (1-4) receives higher intensity shown in
the figure 3.
and is ignored. Using this procedure, the breakup length has
been estimated for all the atomizer configurations at various
injection pressures. Since Malvern spray analyzer cannot be
used before breakup region, SMD measurements have been
carried out at certain distance after breakup length of the
spray. Increase in injection pressure increases the tangential
velocity of the spray at the orifice exit, which helps in
attaining earlier break-up as shown in the figure 9. Breakup
length monotonically decreases with increase in injection
pressure. These results are in good agreement with results of
reference [5]. Figure 8 shows sudden decrease in pixel
intensity on the either side of the spray, which indicates the
edge of the spray. Using this plot, the width of the spray at a
particular distance from the orifice exit can be measured. This
can be used to measure cone angle of the spray.

4. METHODOLOGY

Before starting the main measurements of droplet

size distributions; various parameters of Malvern spray Figure 2 spray discharging from simplex atomizer and
analyzer has been investigated at the operating conditions of Malvern spray analyzer
the experiment. Figure 5 shows variation of SMD and
transmission with respect to injection pressure (Transmission
is the measure of the amount of laser light reaching the
detector. When no spray is present in the measurement zone,
the transmission is 100%. A certain amount of light is blocked
out when particles are introduced into the measurement area).
Comparing figure 5 and 6 shows that decrease in SMD
reduces the transmission. According to reference [7], the
influence of multiple scattering has to be considered for
transmission lower than 40 %. In all measurements of the
present analysis, the transmission percentage was above 55%,
so the effect of multiple scattering on the present results is
very less. To inspect the effect of distance between spray and
receiver of Malvern spray analyzer on drop size distribution
measurements, experiments has been conducted at different
distances from the receiver to the spray (20, 30, 40, and 60).
Figure 3 raw light scattering at different pressure
Figure 7 shows the drop size distributions; there is slight
variation in the results. It clearly indicates that there is a
negligible variation in the drop size distributions irrespective
of the location of spray from the receiver.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Image analysis
Figure 2 shows the image of the spray at the injection
pressure 10 bar. Using the Matlab, intensity variation along
axial and radial direction of the spray can be plotted as shown
in the figure 7 and 8 respectively. The left side of figure 7
shows a sudden decrease in intensity from a very high value,
which indicates a major change in the characteristic diameter
of the liquid particles. This is possibly due to the sheet break-
up of the spray. Towards the right of this graph, pixel intensity
increases drastically, this is only due to background wetness, Figure 4 drop size distribution at different pressure
 25
250 90

Breakup length (mm)

85 20
200
SMD (micron)

80
15
150 75
70 10
100 65
5
50 60
55 0
0 50 0 5 10 15
Injection Pressure (Bar)
0 20 40
Injection pressure (bar) Figure 9 breakup length spray at different pressure
SMD % Transmission

Figure 5 transmission and SMD variation at different injection 85

pressure
75

Spray cone angle (Deg)

65 k=0.252

55 k=0.33

45 k=0.636
k=0.747
35

25

Figure 6 dropsize distribution at different distance form the
reciever of Malvern spray analyzer
Figure 7 pixel intensity along axial direction
Figure 8 pixel intensity along radial direction
15
0 10 20 30
Injection pressure (bar)
Figure 10 spray cone angle at different pressure
Figure 10 shows the effect of injection pressure on spray cone
angle for all atomizer configurations. The increase in atomizer
constant (K) reduces the swirl strength inside the swirl
chamber, which reduces the size of the air core present in the
center which in turn reduces the spray cone angle as shown in
the figure 10. In the case of atomizer with lower K (0.252,
0.33), spray cone angle continuously increases with injection
pressure. In the case of atomizer with higher K (0.636, 0.747),
initially spray cone angle increases significantly but remains
almost constant after 16 bar. This trend clearly shows that,
increase in injection pressure after 16 bar does not increase the
cone angle of atomizer with higher atomizer constant.
According to the reference [3], increase in injection pressure
increases both the swirling strength at inlet of tangential port
and subsequent decay due to frictional effect in the nozzle. In
the case of atomizer with higher atomizer constant, after 16
bar increase in injection pressure does not significantly
increase the swirl strength and cone angle. But in the case of
the atomizer with lower atomizer constant, increase in
injection pressure increases the swirl strength continuously
and cone angle.
5.2 Spray characteristics along the axis of water spray
Figure 11 shows SMD and span (Span= (D0.9-
D0.1)/D0.5) variation along axial direction of the water spray of
atomizer with higher K (0.747) at injection pressure of 12 bar.
The trend of SMD in the figure 11 matches with pixel
intensity variation along the axial direction in figure 7. In the
figure 11 SMD rapidly decreases along the axial direction up
to 30 mm from the orifice exit, and gradually decreases up to
120 mm, also span monotonically increases after 30mm from
the orifice exit. Figure 12 shows the drop size distribution at
various locations at the axis of the spray. In figure 12, the
volume percentage of larger droplet diameter reduces rapidly
up to 30mm from the orifice exit, the peak diameter shifts
from right to center and volume percentage of droplet in the
range 10 to 100 micron increases after 30mm from the orifice
exit. Also volume percentage of droplet in the range of 100 to
200 micron gradually increases up to 30mm from the orifice
exit, and reduces in 70mm and 120 mm cases. The results in
the figure 11 and 12 clearly shows rapid breakup of larger
droplets (250 to 120 microns) up to 30mm from the orifice
exit and gradual breakup of smaller droplets (100-50 microns)
along the axial direction of the spray.
300 3.5
due to lower surface tension of kerosene; SMD of kerosene
spray is lesser than water. After 40mm from orifice exit, the
curves are smooth for water but oscillatory in nature for
kerosene. This fluctuating nature of SMD in kerosene spray, is
observed in reference [1]. Figure 14 shows oscillating nature
of droplet size distribution at different locations from the
orifice exit. Once the particle size decreases to a value less
than 100μm, evaporation of kerosene is faster. Thorough
mixing of fine kerosene droplets with the dispersant air
changes the ambient density and refractive index; which
affects the measuring principle of Malvern spray analyzer; this
may be the reason for this rapid fluctuation. After 40mm
downstream, the span of kerosene increases very much and
higher temporal fluctuations were observed; whereas it
remains almost constant for water. A large value of span
indicates a large range of particle size in the kerosene spray
which may be due to secondary breakup of larger droplets.

250 3
250 7
2.5 Water D32 KeroD 32
200 230
Water Span Kero Span 6
SMD (microns)

2
150 SM 210
1.5
100 D 190 5
1 SMD (microns)
50 170
0.5 4

Span
0 0 150
3
0 50 100 150 130
Along the axis of the spary (mm)
110 2
Figure 11 SMD and span variation along the axial direction of
90
the water spray
1
70
50 0
0 50 100 150
Along the axis of the spray (mm)
Figure 13 SMD and span variation along the axial direction of
the water and kerosene spray

Figure 12 drop size distribution at various locations at the axis

of the spray
5.3 Comparison of spray characteristics of water and
kerosene along the axis of the spray
Figure 13 compares SMD and span variation along axial
direction of both water and kerosene spray of atomizer with
higher K (0.747) at injection pressure of 12 bar. Figure 14
shows drop size distributions of kerosene spray at different Figure 14 drop size distribution of water and kerosene spray at
downstream locations from the orifice exit. SMD decreases different downstream locations
steeply for both the liquids till about 40mm from orifice exit,
5.4 Spray characteristics along radial direction at different 120
down stream locations of water spray Z+40
110 Z+60
Figure 15 compares SMD variation along the radial
direction at different height from the orifice exit of atomizer Z+80
with higher K (0.747) at injection pressure of 10 bar. The 100 Z+100

SMD (microns)
measurement volume of the instrument is defined as the
intersection of a particle field and a collimated laser beam [7].
The measuring volume at the center of the spray contains both 90
spray sheets and center air core and measuring volume at the
edge of the spray contains only spray sheet. As the laser 80
moves in radial direction, either left or right, the SMD value
can be found to have increased slowly, reaches a maximum
value and then decreases. This trend is in good agreement with 70
literature. Along the axial direction of the spray, this radial
profile widens and the distance between the maximum value
also increases as shown in the figure 15. This trend of SMD 60
variation along radial direction matches well with pixel -50 -30 -10 10 30 50
intensity variation along radial direction shown in figure 8. At Distance along radial direction (mm)
the place where the SMD reaches a maximum the cone has got Figure 15 SMD variations along the radial direction at
its edge. The edge is probably constituted by more number of different height from the orifice exit of atomizer
larger particles. Figure 16 compares drop size distribution at
different points along radial direction at 100 mm from orifice
exit. At this axial location, the SMD profile reaches maximum
at 30 mm from the center as shown in the figure 15, at this
radius spray has got its edge. From the center to radial peak
(30mm), volume percentage of larger droplets (300 to 700
micron) does not changes significantly, but volume percentage
of droplets in the range of 80 to 300 micron increases (as it
approaches the edge of the spray) and volume percentage of
smaller droplets (30-80 micron) reduces, this shows very less
presence of smaller droplets near the edge of the spray. After
30 mm form the center but still near to the spray cone, drop-
size distribution becomes narrower; the volume percentage of
smaller particle and larger particle has also degraded
indicating an absence of smaller and larger particles. Figure
17, shows drop size distribution at radial peak of each axial
location (along the edge of the spray). In figure 17 entire
distribution curve shifts towards left, which is due to Figure 16 drop size distribution along radial direction at 100
continuous breakup droplets along the edge of the spray. mm from orifice exit
5.5 Spray characteristics along radial direction at different
injection pressure

Figure 18 shows SMD variation along the radial

direction at different injection pressure of atomizer with
higher K (0.747) at distance 40mm from the orifice exit. SMD
values decrease at center, probably due to increase in the
strength of air core at the center with increase in pressure.
With increase in injection pressure, radial profile widens and
the distance between the maximum value also increases,
which matches with the results of cone angle measurements.
Figure 19 compares drop size distribution at the center of the
spray for different injection pressures. With increase in
injection pressure, decrease in larger droplets and increase in
volume percentage of smaller droplets shows the improvement
in the atomization quality.
Figure 17 drop size distribution at radial peak of SMD profile
at different axial locations
 peak diameter shifts towards left and its volume percentage
120 6 bar also decreases. Span gets reduced due to the presence of
8 bar uniform droplets. Volume percentage of smaller droplets
110 increases significantly. All these changes will improve the
10 bar atomization quality and combustor performance.
SMD (microns)

100
14 bar
90

80

70

60
-30 -10 10 30
Distance along radial direction (mm)
Figure 18 SMD variation along the radial direction at different
injection pressure

Figure 20 SMD variation along the radial direction for

different atomizer configuration

Figure 19 drop size distribution at the center of the spray for

different injection pressure
5.6 Spray characteristics along radial direction for
different atomizer configurations

Figure 20 shows SMD variation along the radial
direction at 10 bar injection pressure for different atomizer
(0.252,0.33 and 0.636) at distance 60mm from the orifice exit.
At constant injection pressure, increase in the inlet tangential
port area (table-1) reduces the tangential component of
velocity inside the swirl chamber, which in turn affects
strength of air core in the center; this significantly affects the
SMD profile along radial direction as shown in the figure 20.
With increase in atomizer constant, diameter at the peak of the
radial profile increases and distance between the radial peak
reduces, these results match with the results of image analysis
for cone angle measurements. Atomizer with lower K forms
more uniform SMD profile than atomizer with higher K.
Figure 21 shows drop size distribution at center of spray with
different atomizer configurations. In the figure 21, with
decrease in atomizer constant (increase the swirl strength) the
Figure 21 drop size distribution at center of spray with
different atomizer configurations
6. CONCLUSIONS
In this work, spray characteristic of in house
developed simplex atomizer have been experimentally
investigated using two different techniques (Image processing
tool of Matlab and Malvern spray analyzer). Sprays at
different injection pressures of four different atomizers
covering wide range of atomizer constant have been studied.
Images of the spray at different condition have been captured
and analyzed with image processing tool of Matlab. Pixel
intensity along axial and radial directions of the spray has
been plotted; breakup length and cone angle of the spray has
been calculated at different injection pressures of four
different atomizer configurations.
 Increase in injection pressure increases the tangential Ls - Swirl chamber length(mm)
velocity of the spray at the orifice exit, which decreases the Ap - Total port area (mm2)
breakup length monotonically. Increase in injection pressure Np - Number of ports
of atomizer, increases both the swirling strength at inlet of Dp - Diameter of ports(mm)
tangential port and subsequent decay due to frictional effect in K - Atomizer constant
the nozzle. With increase in injection pressure spray cone
angle initially increases, but after 16 bar decay due to 8. REFERENCE
frictional effect dominates swirling strength, hence spray cone
angle remains constant for higher K (0.636, 0.747) 1. T.Marchione , C Allouis, A.Amoresano, F.Beretta,
configurations. Atomizers with lower K (0.252, 0.33) has “Experimental Investigation of a Pressure Swirl Atomizer
lower port diameter, so increase in swirling strength dominates Spray” Journal of Propulsion and Power Vol.23, No.5,
the decay due to frictional effect, which increase the spray September-October 2007.
cone angle monotonically with injection pressure. 2. K.U. Reddy and D.P. Mishra, “Studies on spray behaviour
of a Pressure Swirl Atomizer in Transition Regime”, Journal
The measurements of SMD and drop size distribution
of Propulsion and power vol.24, no.1, Jan-Feb 2008
along axial direction of the water spray describe the
3. A. Datta, S.K. Som, “Numerical prediction of air core
continuous brakup of droplets along axial direction of the
diameter, coefficient of discharge and spray cone angle of a
spray. Breakup of larger droplets near the orifice exit is faster
swirl spray pressure nozzle” International Journal of Heat
than breakup of smaller droplets away from the orifice exit.
and Fluid Flow 01/2000
SMD variation along axial direction of both water and
4. R Kumara Gurubaran, R.I Sujith and S. R. Chakravarthy;
kerosene spray has been compared, due to lower surface
“Characterisation of a Prefilming Airblast atomizer in a
tension of kerosene; SMD of kerosene spray is lesser than
strong swirl flow-field” Journal of Propulsion and Power
water spray. The measurement of SMD variation along the
September-October 2008.
radial direction at different height from the orifice exit of
5. Ashraf. A. Ibrahim and M. A. Jog, "Nonlinear Breakup
atomizer clearly shows the presence of fine droplets at the
Model for a Liquid Sheet Emanating From a Pressure-Swirl
center and larger droplets at the edge of the spray. The larger
Atomizer," (Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbine and
particles constituting the edge get thrown to higher radius due
Power, Vol. 129(4), 945-953, 2007)
to centrifugal force where as smaller particles with low inertia
6. Mustapha Chaker, Cyrus B. Meher-Homji, Thomas “Fog
do not participate in this shift.
droplet sizing analysis, nozzletypes, measurement and
SMD variation along the radial direction at different testing” Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2002 June 3-6,
injection pressure of atomizer has been measured. With 2002
increase in injection pressure, strength of air core in center 7. K Triballier, C Dumouchel, J Cousin. “A technical study
increases; which widens the radial profile of SMD, which on the Spraytec performances: influence of multiple light
matches with the pixel intensity variation along the radial scattering and multi-modal drop-size distribution
direction. SMD variation along the radial direction for measurements”, Experiments in fluids 35, 2003
different atomizer configurations has been measured. With
decrease in atomizer constant, diameter at the peak of the
radial profile decreases and distance between the radial peak
increases, and forms more uniform SMD profile. Comparing
the results of SMD at different injection pressures and
different atomizer configurations, reducing the atomizer
constant improves the atomization quality more effectively
than increasing the injection pressure.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

The authors are thankful to Director, NAL for

permitting to publish this work. The authors are thankful to the
Head, Propulsion division for his encouragement to this work.
The authors are also thankful to Ms.Jenny Majeed V for her
contribution in the post processing of the results and
Mr.Chandrashekar, Mr.Yugesh for their assistance during
experiment.

Nomenclature

lo - Orifice length (mm)

do - Orifice diameter (mm)
Ds - Swirl chamber diameter (mm)