Dominant breakup mechanism

Droplet Breakup—High Turbulence This is the dominant breakup mechanism for many process applications. Breakup results from local variations in turbulent pressure that distort the droplet... 

Droplet Breakup—High Turbulence This is the dominant breakup mechanism for many process applications. Breakup results from local variations in turbulent pressure that distort the droplet shape. Hinze [Am. Inst. Chem. Eng.., 1, 289-295 (1953)] applied turbulence theory to obtain the form of Eq. (14-190) and took liquid-liquid data to define the coefficient ... 

Although the dominant mixing mechanism of an immiscible liquid polymeric system appears to be stretching the dispersed phase into filament and then form droplets by filament breakup, individual small droplet may also break up at Ca 3> Ca. A detailed review of this mechanism is given by Janssen (34). The deformation of a spherical liquid droplet in a homogeneous flow held of another liquid was studied in the classic work of G. I. Taylor (35), who showed that for simple shear flow, a case in which interfacial tension dominates, the drop would deform into a spheroid with its major axis at an angle of 45° to the how, whereas for the viscosity-dominated case, it would deform into a spheroid with its major axis approaching the direction of how (36). Taylor expressed the deformation D as follows... 

Following the early work by Thorsen et al., focused on the formation of monodisperse aqueous droplets in an organic carrier fluid performed on a microfluidic chip, and then followed by others works, the breakup mechanism responsible of droplet formation was later analyzed by Garstecki et al. ° showing that when is order of 1 the dominant contribution to the dynamics of breakup at low capillary numbers is not dominated by shear stresses, but it is driven by the pressure drop across the emerging droplet. 

Hinze (1975) has suggested that breakup mechanisms can be of two broad types (1) dominated by viscosity effects and (2) dominated by turbulent phenomena. Hinze derived a critical Weber number from Equation 7A.3 as follows ... 

Cho and Kamal (2002) derived equations for the affine deformation of the dispersed phase, using a stratified, steady, simple shear flow model. It includes the effects of viscosity ratio and volume fraction. According to the equation, for viscosity ratio > 1, the deformation of the dispersed phase increases with the increase of the dispersed phase fraction. For compatibiUzed PE/PA-6 blends at high RPM (i.e., 100, 150, and 200 RPM) in the Haake mixer, the particle size decreases with concentration of the dispersed phase up to 20 wt%. This occurs because the total deformation of the dispersed phase before breakup increases as the volume fraction increases, and coalescence is suppressed. The increase of the particle sizes between 20 and 30 wt% results from the increase of coalescence due to the high dispersed phase fractions. The data for 1 wt% blends suggest that mixing in the Haake mixer follows the transient deformation and breakup mechanism, and that shear flow is dominant in the mixer. 

J ct Spra.y, The mechanism that controls the breakup of a Hquid jet has been analy2ed by many researchers (22,23). These studies indicate that Hquid jet atomisation can be attributed to various effects such as Hquid—gas aerodynamic interaction, gas- and Hquid-phase turbulence, capillary pinching, gas pressure fluctuation, and disturbances initiated inside the atomiser. In spite of different theories and experimental observations, there is agreement that capillary pinching is the dominant mechanism for low velocity jets. As jet velocity increases, there is some uncertainty as to which effect is most important in causing breakup. 

Bubble and drop breakup is mainly due to shearing in turbulent eddies or in velocity gradients close to the walls. Figure 15.11 shows the breakup of a bubble, and Figure 15.12 shows the breakup of a drop in turbulent flow. The mechanism for breakup in these small surface-tension-dominated fluid particles is initially very similar. They are deformed until the aspect ratio is about 3. The turbulent fluctuations in the flow affect the particles, and at some point one end becomes... 

Weber s theory has been further extended by many investi-gators[391 [4ill204 [22°][22-7] t0 account for high-velocity jet breakup and droplet formation under the influence of ambient air. Various mechanisms of jet breakupl40H41Pio][220][227][232] have been pro posed and divided into breakup regimes to reflect the differences in the appearance of jets and to identify the dominant forces leading to jet breakup as operation conditions are changed. 

Fog Condensation—The Other Way to Make Little Droplets For a variety of reasons, a gas or vapor can become supersaturated with a condensable component. Surface tension and mass transfer impose barriers on immediate condensation, so growth of fog particles lags behind what equilibrium predicts. Droplets formed by Fog condensation are usually much finer (0.1 to 10 pm) than those formed by mechanical breakup and hence more difficult to collect. Sometimes fog can be a serious problem, as in the atmospheric discharge of a valuable or a hazardous material. More commonly, fog is a curiosity rather than a dominating element in chemical processing. 

Microsuspension and Inverse-microsuspension. In suspension polymerizations, particle formation occurs through a droplet breakup-coalescence mechanism, with the diameter controlled by the temperature, interfacial tension, agitation intensity and conversion. Suspension polymerizations have typically been characterized by an initiator soluble in the monomer phase and particle diameters in the 50-1000 pm range [40]. Smaller particles (0.2-20 pm) have been produced at higher agitation speeds (lower interfadal tensions) [41] and in such cases a prefix micro has been added to the nomenclature (microsuspension) to reflect both the dominant synthesis conditions (suspension) and the nominal particle size (1 micron). Therefore, microsuspension polymerization has historically referred to a subdomain of suspension polymerization occurring at smaller particle sizes. Based on an analogy to this nomenclature, inverse-microsuspension polymerization has been proposed for similar water-in-oil... 

This long-time behavior of the distribution is characterized by the dominant mechanism of breakup. Improvements to the model, wherein presence of a liquid core near the injector is taken into account [37], have been proposed. 

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