The thermal usage of liquid fuels implies their combustion, which is a process strongly influenced by the performance of the atomizer, which disrupts the fuel into drops of the required sizes. The spray quality of the twin-fluid atomizers with internal mixing (IM-TFA) is primarily influenced by the two-phase flow pattern inside the mixing chamber. We studied the performance of the four types of the IM-TFA nozzles by the optical diffraction system (Malvern Spraytec) to answer the question of how the mixing chamber design influences the spray quality at low atomizing gas consumption. We tested the effervescent atomizer in outside-in-liquid (OIL) and outside-in-gas (OIG) configurations, the Y-jet nozzle and new nozzle design, and the CFT atomizer when spraying model liquids with the viscosities comparable to the common fuels ($\mu =60\mathrm{and}143$ mPa$·$ s). We found that the effervescent atomizer performance was strongly influenced by the configuration of the inlet ports. Although the OIL configuration provided the best spray quality ($D_{32}$ = 72 $\mathsf{\mu }$m), with the highest efficiency (0.16%), the OIG nozzle was characterized by unstable work and poor spray quality. Both the devices were sensitive to liquid viscosity. The Y-jet nozzle provided a stable performance over the liquid viscosity spectrum, but the spray quality and efficiency were lower than for the OIL nozzle. Our findings can be used to improve the performance of the common IM-TFA types or to design new atomizers. The results also provide an overview of the tested atomizers’ performances over the wide range of working conditions and, thus, help to define the application potential of the tested nozzle designs.

EPJ Web of Conferences, open-access proceedings in physics and related sciences

A natural circulation helium loop appears to be a perspective passive method of a nuclear reactor cooling. When designing this device, it is important to analyze the mechanism of an internal flow. The flow of helium in the loop is set in motion due to a difference of hydrostatic pressures between cold and hot branch. Steady flow at a requested flow rate occurs when the buoyancy force is adjusted to resistances against the flow. Considering the fact that the buoyancy force is proportional to a difference of temperatures in both branches, it is important to estimate the losses correctly in the process of design. The paper deals with the calculation of losses in branches of the natural circulation helium loop by methods of CFD. The results of calculations are an important basis for the hydraulic design of both exchangers (heater and cooler). The analysis was carried out for the existing model of a helium loop of the height 10 m and nominal heat power 250 kW.

In this work we studied the influence of the fluid injection configuration (OIG: outside-in-gas, OIL: outside-in-liquid) on the internal flows and external sprays parameters. We sprayed the viscous aqueous maltodextrin solutions (μ = 60 mPa·s) at a constant inlet pressure of the gas and the gas to the liquid mass flow ratio (GLR) within the range 2.5 to 20%. We found that the fluids injection has a crucial influence on the internal flows. The internal flows patterns for the OIG atomizer were the slug flows, the internal flow of the OIL device was annular which led to the significant improvement of the spray quality: Smaller droplets, faster atomization, fewer pulsations.