Experimental Study of Time-Dependent Evolution of Water Droplet Breakup in High-Speed Air Flows

Abstract

This paper presents experimental data on water droplet breakup in high-speed air flows. Exact-time-dependent evolution of wave and droplet interaction as well as breakup processes were optically visualized using a shadowgraph technique. Droplet experiments were conducted in a shock tube. Five flow conditions were used with an incident shock wave Mach number from 1.40 to 2.19 with Weber number based on the droplet initial diameter from 2300 to 38000, respectively. This corresponds to post-shock flow speeds varying from subsonic to supersonic. The considered droplet diameters were 2.0 mm to 3.6 mm. Some interesting wave patterns in the near wake were found. The present data shows that with an increase in the Weber number the droplet acceleration coefficient decreases and the level of decrease was weaker for the case of higher Mach numbers. This state of affair is different to the existing data in literature. Possible reasons are discussed.