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Size and velocity correlation for splashing droplets generated by jet impingement

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Abstract

Municipal drainage systems can transmit harmful microorganisms such as COVID-19 virus through wastewater as well as drain airflow with suspended tiny bio-droplets. The generation of tiny droplets in drainage systems can be simplified as the phenomenon of jet impingement and splashing, which is also common in industries, but the size and velocity correlation and the kinetic energy of splashing droplets remain unclear. This paper uses high-speed photography to study splashing from a jet impinging on a horizontal plate. Since the jet can break into successive drops before impingement, successive drops impingement and continuous jet impingement are defined and their splashing modes are revealed. Successive drops impingement and continuous jet impingement, respectively, produce splashing droplets with sizes smaller than 0.25 and 0.30 times the size of the impact drops and jet, and with the velocities up to 3.0 and 1.5 times the impact velocity. Correlations between size and velocity of splashing droplets are established: the range and maximum of velocity increase as diameter decreases, and the high velocity splashing droplets have ejection angles within 10° to 20°. For successive drops impingement, the percentage of total kinetic energy of splashing droplets relative to impact kinetic energy increases with impact Weber number and can reach nearly 50%; however, it varies little with impact Weber number for continuous jet impingement, reaching only 10%. Successive drops impingement produces more splashing droplets characterized by a combination of smaller size, higher velocity and larger ejection angle, resulting in a greater risk of producing airborne microorganisms.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful for the strong interest and guidance from Dr. Rasha Maal-Bared (EPCOR Water Services Inc.), Mr. Bert van Duin (the City of Calgary), Mr. Kingsford Amoah (the City of Red Deer), Dr. Lyndon Gyurek (Alberta Environment and Parks), and Dave Kryiak and Nicole McLellan (Stantec Consulting Ltd.). Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52279063), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20231462), Jiangsu Innovation Support Programme for International Science and Technology Cooperation (Grant No. BZ2023047), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, and International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program by the Office of China Postdoctoral Council (Grant No. 20190025) is gratefully appreciated. The authors also would like to thank Perry Fedun for his technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Qin Zeng & Han Ye

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada

    David Z. Zhu, Shangtuo Qian & Pengcheng Li

  3. College of Agricultural Science and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Shangtuo Qian, Hui Xu & Jiangang Feng

  4. School of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Geography Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China

    David Z. Zhu

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  1. Qin Zeng
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  3. Shangtuo Qian
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Contributions

QZ contributed to formal analysis; investigation; methodology; writing—original draft. DZZ contributed to funding acquisition; supervision; writing—review and editing. SQ contributed to conceptualization; funding acquisition; investigation; supervision; writing—review and editing. HX contributed to investigation; validation; visualization. JF contributed to investigation; writing—review and editing. HY contributed to formal analysis; validation. PL contributed to writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Shangtuo Qian.

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Zeng, Q., Zhu, D.Z., Qian, S. et al. Size and velocity correlation for splashing droplets generated by jet impingement. Exp Fluids 65, 52 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-024-03795-z

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