Breakup of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids in air jets

The breakup of droplets of non-Newtonian fluids has been investigated by high speed photography and impaction following preliminary results of Newtonian fluids, which confirmed the suitability of the measurement techniques. Single droplets with diameters from 2.4 to 3.3 mm, were arranged to fall under gravity into a jet of air with velocities up to 36o m/s. The droplets of Newtonian fluids, water and Diesel oil, were atomised in the expected manner within three main regimes characterised by the Weber number of the droplet and air jet conditions, while similar droplets of non-Newtonian fluids were found not to atomise but to develop under shear and stretching into ligaments of fluid separated from a local region of their surface; these ligaments were elongated until breakup occurred, though not into small droplets as with the Newtonian fluids. Some of the non-Newtonian fluids (TEP with 7.5% and lo% K125, with and without water) were found not to break up at the maximum speed of the tests and they will be re-examined at higher jet velocities. Increase in the concentration of K125 in TEP resulted in higher critical speed for a given droplet diameter.The authors would like to thank Prof. J. H. Whitelaw of Imperial College for many discussions and useful suggestions during the course of this work, and Dr. G. Cambray of CBDE for his valuable administrative support