Numerical Simulation on Flow Field of Laval-style Atomizer by Fluent

Gas atomization can be used in producing high-quality metal powder and the atomizer has great influence on the production quality. In this paper, the annular orifice atomizer is optimized by adopting Laval nozzle as the shape of gas jet orifice and a three-dimensional model of supersonic annular orifice atomizer is adopted to investigate the flow field characteristic at different atomization gas pressure (P₀), including gas velocity, static pressure and aspiration pressure at the delivery tube tip. The numerical results indicate that the maximum gas velocity in the atomization zone increases with increasing P₀. The aspiration pressure is also found to increase as P₀ increases. Comparing with annular slit atomizer, there is no airflow shock wave in the flow field, which can weak the atomization effect.