Effect of confinement on breakup of planar liquid sheets sandwiched between two gas streams and resulting spray characteristics

Breakup of a planar liquid sheet in the presence of confining walls has been investigated using nonlinear stability analysis. The gas streams and the liquid sheet sandwiched between them are considered to be moving. Temporal stability analysis has been done for both sinuous and varicose modes of disturbance. The results show the clear influence of the proximity of confining walls on the stability and breakup of liquid sheets, particularly for the varicose mode where satellite drops are predicted for certain ranges of parameters. The presence of wall leads to shorter breakup lengths but larger drop sizes. © 2014 The Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics and IOP Publishing Ltd.