Design and experimental investigation of an internal mixing twin-fluid atomiser for the generation of test aerosol particles

ABSTRACT

Internal mixing twin-fluid atomiser is known to be one of the prominent atomisers for the generation of spray or spray-like dispersion from bulk liquids. This paper designs and investigates the performance of a customised liquid siphon type internal mixing twin-fluid atomiser for the generation of test aerosol particles from oleic acid in an ethyl alcohol solution. Experimental results show the effect of airflow rate on suction height and liquid consumption rate of the atomiser with different design parameters. Variation of suction height and liquid consumption rate are investigated for six different design atomisers by varying the airflow rate between 18 and 230 lpm. It is seen that the atomiser with optimum design can have a suction height of up to 103 cm and a liquid consumption rate of up to 1545 ml/h. Atomiser 3 (with air inlet diameter = 18 mm and liquid jet diameter = 2 mm) produces better test aerosol participles with constant S/D = 0.66 and 10% solution concentration. While using this atomiser for the production of test aerosol, the lowest geometric standard deviation found in the experiment was 1.2.

KEYWORDS:

• Twin-fluid atomiser
• internal mixing
• aerosol particles

Nomenclature

Table

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amit M. E. Arefin

Amit M. E. Arefinis a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University. His research interests lie in a broad area of engineering design.

Anan Ashrabi Ananno

Anan Ashrabi Ananno is pursuing his M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at Linköping University, Sweden. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology (RUET). His research focuses on industrial design and product development.

Mahadi Hasan Masud

Mahadi Hasan Masud received his BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology (RUET). He currently serves as a Faculty Member in Mechanical Engineering of RUET. Moreover, he is currently pursuing his PhD at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His research focus is on innovative food techniques, simultaneous heat and mass transfer, renewable energy resources, and biomimicry-inspired vehicle design. He authored 3 popular books published by Springer Nature, 7 book chapters, more than 20 refereed journal publications, and more than 10 international conference publications. Most of his journal articles are published in highly ranked journals. He is a regular Reviewer of several high-ranked journals of prominent publishers, including Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Taylor & Francis.

Mostafijur Rahman

Md Mostafijur Rahman is a post-doctoral research scholar in the Department of Preventive Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA, USA. He completed his PhD in Environmental Medicine from New York University, New York, USA.

Monjur Mourshed

Monjur Mourshed received his BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology (RUET). He is a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, RUET (2015-Present). Currently, he is pursuing PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the RMIT University, Australia. His research interests include renewable energy, fuel cell, energy storage materials. He published 1 book in Springer Nature, more than 10 referred journals and more than 10 international conference papers.

Kamrun Nahar

Kamrun Naharcompleted her MS in Environmental Medicine from New York University, New York, NY, USA. Her research interests include air quality modelling, exposure assessment, and human health effects of exposures to air pollutants.

Shamim Akhter

Md. Shamim Akhter is a professor in Mechanical Engineering at Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh. He obtained a PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India in 1999. He is an expert in aerosol technology. His research interests also include bio-fuels.