Dimensionless study of spray formed by impinging jets over a flat deflector Aghajani, H., Dembele, S.

* and Wen, J.X.

School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Kingston University, London SW15 3DW, UK. *Corresponding author: Email: s.dembele@kingston.ac.uk, Tel.: +44 208 417 8720, Fax: +44 208 417 7992.

Abstract:
With the universal growth in utilization of sprinklers as automatic fixed installation fire suppression system, an increasing demand for computational studies of fire suppression scenarios has been also arisen. In this study a theoretical deterministic model suitable to characterise the spray formed from an orthogonally impinging jet is introduced and also an extension of the state-of-the-art dimensionless formulation (Marshall, 2008) will be investigated. Despite the fact that orthogonal impinging jet configuration seems ideal in replace of a sprinkler, yet the derivation of dimensionless formulation on the basis of this simplified structure can shed light on some essential features of spray formation. Two new non-dimensional numbers, the geometrical diameter ratio and the sheet Weber number, , based on the sheet thickness at the edge of deflector, are introduced in the procedure of deriving theoretical expressions for dimensionless sheet breakup distance (eq. 1), , and dimensionless spray overall median diameter (eq. 2), , as a function of dimensionless density, , dimensionless film thickness, , and dimensionless total wave growth, .
[ ( )

(1) (2)

The derivation of dimensionless expressions and their accuracy will be discussed in depth in full length paper. The sheet breakup distance is validated in figure 1 against semi-empirical correlations obtained by Huang (1970), for axisymmetric sheets and Ren et al. (2008) as for the basis nozzle.

Figure 1: Comparison of sheet breakup distance, eq. 1 (o), with empirical correlations (-.) & (-) and literature (+) The dimensionless expression slightly over predicts the sheet breakup distances due to the assumptions made within the course of derivation, but it still falls within an acceptable range, especially for jet flows with higher Weber numbers. The discrepancy between the model and empirical correlations could firstly emanate from the difference in method of creating the horizontal, axisymmetric sheets. Huang (1970) used two opposed impinging jets to create his radially expanding sheets, while a single impinging on a flat deflector surface was considered in studies of Ren et al., (2008 and 2009). Secondly there is an uncertainty in the spatial location at which the measurements have being carried out. More predictions of sheet breakup length will be presented and discussed in the full length paper along with illustration of the spray volume median diameters, eq. (2), which also shows good degree of fidelity. References: Huang, J.C.P., Breakup of axisymmetric liquid sheets Journal of fluid mechanics 43(2) (1970): 341-363. Marshall, A. W., Unravelling fire suppression sprays, International Fire Sprinkler Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008. Ren, N, Blum, A., Zheng Y., Do. C., and Marshall A. W., Quantifying the initial spray from fire sprinklers, Fire Safety Science-Proceeding of the Ninth International Symposium, IAFSS, Karlsruhe, Deutschland, (2008). Ren, N, Blum, A., Do. C., and Marshall A. W., Atomization and dispersion measurements in fire sprinkler sprays Atomization and Sprays 19 (2009): 1125-1136.