Spray formation by flashing of a binary mixture: An energy balance approach

An attempt is made to correlate droplets' Sauter mean diameter with the thermodynamic properties of a binary mixture at initial conditions, by means of the process efficiency interpretation and the "available energy" theorem. Two limiting cases are considered; an isothermal process and an adiabatic process. An idealized form of the isothermal model results in a simple correlation that clearly explains some of the relationships between the initial conditions of the binary solution and the spray quality. This is in the form of d₃₂ = 1 - y_β,i/y_β,i · 6σ/ηρ_αR_βT₀In[P _sat(T_i)/P₀] The results of the adiabatic model seem to be more realistic and fit the experimental observations better. The process efficiency is found to be about 2 × 10^-4. It is possible that the process efficiency depends to a limited extent on the initial conditions.