Studies on secondary atomization of non-newtonian molten droplets

A large number of studies in the literature have looked at secondary atomization of Newtonian liquids such as n-Heptane, water, ethyl alcohol, mercury and glycerol solutions, and ‘drop deformation and breakup regime maps’ have been plotted based on the studies. The aim of the present research is to study the secondary atomization of heated liquids. One of the liquids that was studied is molten beeswax which is a shear-thinning non-Newtonian liquid. A mono-disperse stream generator equipped with a piezo-stack and a heater produced mono-disperse droplets of molten beeswax and their breakup due to cross-flow was captured using backlit imaging. The continuous jet method was used in this study. The Weber number was varied by changing the velocity of air jet, and bag breakup, multimode breakup and sheet-thinning breakup were observed in the range studied.