SprayU Course 105 - Introduction To Drop Size

1. Drop Size

1.1 105 INTRODUCTION TO DROP SIZE

Notes:

In this section we will show several applications where drop size is a critical parameter
and introduce the measurements of average drop size and drop size distribution.

1.2 Confidential

Attention:

This training material is only for the use of Spraying Systems Company employees,
distributors, and authorized personnel. Distribution of this material in whole or any
portion to others including customers and potential customers is strictly prohibited.

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1.3 Atomization

Notes:

Atomization is the process of converting a liquid stream into drops or a spray. Generally,
the word atomization implies producing a fine spray. The term droplet usually implies a
smaller drop. As we saw in the segment on spray formation, spray nozzles and
atomizers, produce a range of sizes of drops.

1.4 What Affects Drop Size?

Notes:

Here we see the factors that affect drop size. The nozzle, capacity size, spray angle and
the operating pressure, are critical to performance. The physical properties of the liquid,
especially viscosity, can dramatically affect the drop size.

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1.5 Why Measure Drop Size?

Notes:

Why do we quantify drop size? We measure drop size to improve application efficiency
helping the customer select the best nozzle. Determining the optimal nozzle for an
application often can be accelerated by relating performance to spray characteristics,
especially drop size and drop velocity. Enabled by the advances in instrumentation for
drop size measurements beginning twenty years ago and accelerating particularly over
the past ten years, there has been a dramatic change in optimization. Accurate, rapid
and cost-effective measurement methods are the reason for the change. We will be
covering the measurement methods in a later segment. The best way to understand is
by example.

1.6 Applications Affected By Drop Size

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Notes:

Here are a few of the applications where drop size is critical. Often these require a fine
spray, but in many, too fine a spray may cause difficulties.

1.6.1 Transfer Efficiency

Notes:

Transfer efficiency is the percentage of the material sprayed that is applied to the
surface. The graphic illustrates the use of AutoJet® nozzles that can be actuated and
controlled to coat paper. Some of these applications use blow-off nozzles which have no
liquid, just compressed air to generate an air current. Drop size is critical because if
drops are too small, they drift and are deposited on the processing equipment, not the
paper surface. If the drops are too large, they will deposit unevenly, with too much
material in one area and not enough in another. This application requires uniform
distribution of the liquid for the sprays.

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1.6.2 Dust Control

Notes:

In materials handling, even controlling coal dust on a conveyor, drop size is critical. Coal
plants minimize added water, because it reduces the efficiency of the boiler. A fine spray
captures the dust created by a belt-to-belt transfer. The dust particle size is considered
to determine the size of the water drops needed.

1.6.3 Coating

Notes:

To achieve uniform application of a coating on food on a conveyor, precise control of

drop size and spray uniformity are required. Often these use the AutoJet® control to
spray only the product and not the conveyor.

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1.6.4 Fire Protection And Suppression

Notes:

Fire protection spray applications, protecting the equipment and structure of the building
from fires, uses large flame penetrating drops. To cool the flames, very small drops are
required. They evaporate and the steam generated starves the fire of oxygen.

1.6.5 Humidification

Notes:

Many industrial process environments require precise control of humidity. Very small
drops are required so the spray completely evaporates. It does not have any large drop
that will fall on the equipment or product below. The AirJet® Fogger nozzles, are one
choice for this application.

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1.6.6 Gas Cooling

Notes:

Quench cooling of gasses, rapid cooling, requires precise control of drop size under
varying conditions. The FlowBack® nozzle, a type of swirl nozzle, has a very wide range
of operations. Due to the different flow of gasses, versatility is needed for a constant
outlet temperature and complete evaporation of drops in quench cooling. This
application also uses a number of nozzles to distribute the spray over the vessel cross-
section.

1.6.7 Spray Drying

Notes:

Spray drying of hundreds of food products, like milk for example, requires a specific
average particle size. A specific drop size is needed for each product. Being able to

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relate drop size provides the ability to select a nozzle and operation conditions to
achieve this result. There are several nozzles designed for the specific requirements of
spray dryers.

1.6.8 Tablet Coating

Notes:

Tablet coating is a production application for pharmaceutical products with uniform

coating. By using anti-bearding nozzles, deposits on the nozzle surface is avoided.

1.7 Size Of Drops

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Notes:

Spray drops vary in size. The range in sizes is a factor of thirty from smallest to largest.
The drop size from a spray represents all drops produced by a nozzle under a set of
operating conditions. Most people want a single number, an average to represent all the
drops in a spray.

1.8 Drop Size

Notes:

The drop size refers to the diameter and is usually expressed in microns. A micron is a
millionth of a meter or one thousandth of a millimeter. There are 25,400 microns in an
inch. Therefore, a drop, 1/8 inch in diameter, would be expressed as 3175 microns. This
is a very large drop. A human hair is about 100 microns in diameter. To give you a
physical sense of size, a number 60 drill is 1 millimeter or about 1000 microns in
diameter. A 0.5 mm lead of a mechanical pencil has a diameter of 500 microns.

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1.9 Drop Size Question

Notes:

One drop of diameter D has a surface area of A. If the drops were 1/2 D, how many
would it take to have the same volume? It takes 8 drops of diameter 1/2 D to have the
same volume. This group has a total surface area of 2A. You may be thinking that this
does not seem correct. The volume formula for a sphere has a cubic function of
diameter. 1/2 cubed, is 1/8th. If the drops were 1/4 D, how many would it take?
Following this pattern, it takes 64 drops of 1/4 D, to have the same volume and this
group has four times the surface area.

1.10 Average Drop Size

Notes:

We want an average drop size to represent this spray. There are many approaches, but

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the three most common are: number average, surface area and volume. The least
desirable based on number treats the 1/4 D and D size drops, equally. In a real spray,
the ratio between the smallest and largest drop diameter, is a factor of at least twenty,
requiring 8000 of the smallest sized drop to equal the largest drop. Weighting these two
drops equally does not make sense for nearly all applications. A surface area or volume
weight are more common.

1.11 Drop Surface/Volume Ratio

Notes:

The surface to volume ratio for drops is derived by simply combining the formulas for the
surface area and drop volume. The resulting formula for surface to volume ratio, is 6
divided by the drop diameter. Small drops have a much larger relative surface area. The
correct SI units are meters squared per meters cubed. The graph shows units of meters
squared, per liter scale. For example, a 10-micron diameter drop has about 300 square
meters of surface area per liter or 3200 square feet of area per quart of liquid. This is a
gigantic amount of area. A dry spray for humidification might need this drop diameter.

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1.12 Sauter Mean Average Drop Diameter

Notes:

One of the most widely used average diameters is the Sauter Mean Diameter. This is
known by the abbreviation SMD. This is the equation used to calculate this diameter.
The surface to volume ratio is the same for the SMD drop as for the entire spray.

1.13 Example Calculation

Notes:

Here we have calculated the Number Mean, Sauter Mean Diameter, and another
average diameter called the Volume Median, VMD, or DV0.5. Not too surprisingly, the
number mean is much smaller than the SMD or VMD.

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1.14 What Is The VMD?

Notes:

The Volume Median is not the same as the Volume Mean Diameter. The Volume
Median is the diameter where half of the total volume of the spray is less than this
diameter, and half greater.

1.15 Drop Size Distribution

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Notes:

With this plot, we have defined the drop size distribution. This is one of the most useful
methods to graphically represent a drop size distribution. On this one plot, we can see
the smallest and largest drops, 10 and 300.

1.16 Mean Diameters & Application

Notes:

Here we show four common average diameters: Arithmetic or Number Mean, Surface
Mean, Volume Mean, (this is not the same as Volume Median), and Sauter Mean.
Different customers use any of these to compare sprays depending on the application.
Without a specific request, the VMD is generally the best average to compare sprays.

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1.17 Commonly Used Drop Size Diameters

Notes:

Nearly all our customers will use SMD or VMD to compare the average diameter of the
sprays. Let’s review these definitions to make sure they’re clear. The SMD has the same
surface to volume ratio as for the spray as a whole. Technically, this is a measure of
volume to surface area. The VMD, or DV0.5, is the diameter at 50th percentile, so 50% of
the volume of liquid, is that size drop or smaller.
There are measures that indicate the range of drop diameters in sprays. The simplest is
the minimum and maximum drop size of the spray. These are known by Dmin and Dmax,
respectively. Measuring the maximum drop diameter accurately is difficult. The
cumulative volume fraction approach is also used to define 2 diameters: The DV0.1 to
measure the small diameter portion of the spray, and DV0.9 to measure the large
diameter portion of the spray. The diameter of 10% of the volume of the liquid in a spray
has a drop diameter of less than the DV0.1. And the diameter of 90% of the volume of the
liquid in a spray has a drop diameter less than the Dv0.9.

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1.18 Typical Drop Size Distribution

Notes:

This graph shows the DV0.1, DV0.5, and DV0.9 on the plot of cumulative fraction less than as
a function of drop diameter. The Relative Span Factor (RSF) is a measure of the width of
a drop size distribution. This equation defines the RSF in terms of the DV0.1, DV0.9 and
DV0.5. Let’s look at an example.

1.19 Terms Related To Drop Population Example

Notes:

Here we show a distribution with the DV0.1, DV0.5 and DV0.9 identified. The numerator is the
difference between the DV0.9 and DV0.1, or a measure of the width of the distribution
divided by the VMD or DV0.5. Typical values are between 2 and 3. The tighter the
distribution, the smaller the RSF. Some people may call this RS for Relative Span.

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1.20 Factors Affecting Drop Size

Notes:
There are five factors that affect drop size: nozzle type, capacity, spray angle, pressure
and liquid properties.

Nozzle Type

Notes:

What affects drop size? One big factor is the type of nozzle. At the same supply
pressure and nozzle capacity, the hollow cone will produce the finest spray, while the
solid cone, the coarsest spray. Flat fan sprays are intermediate in drop size terms.

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Capacity

Notes:

What is the effect of nozzle capacity? For a given pressure, the larger capacity nozzle
will have a larger drop size. So, how do you keep drop size the same while increasing
capacity? Increase the number of nozzles.

Pressure

Notes:

What is the affect of pressure? For a given nozzle capacity, the greater the pressure
drop, the smaller the drop size. This controls the range of operation of single fluid
nozzles. Lower pressure and the resulting lower flow, results in a larger drop size.

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Spray Angle

Notes:

How does spray angle effect drop size? Larger spray angle nozzles produce a smaller
drop size than smaller spray angle nozzles. This is true for full cone, hollow cone, or
even flat fan nozzles.

Liquid properties

Notes:

In the photo above, we show the effects of liquid physical properties on drop size. Liquid
density has little impact on either spray angle or drop size. A fluid with a greater surface
tension or viscosity, will produce a larger drop size and a reduced spray angle.

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1.21 Hydraulic Atomization VMD

Notes:

Based only on the model number, what can you tell about the spray angle and capacity
of nozzle data on the graph? Spray angle, 65 degrees. The last four digits are the
capacity. We can see that nozzle capacity has a large impact on VMD, but higher
pressure can compensate somewhat.

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1.22 Air Atomization VMD

Notes:

Here we show the performance graph for an AirJet® fogging nozzle. This nozzle
produces a very small drop size. Controlling the air and liquid pressures at different
levels produces significantly different drop size, the minimum of 10 microns to a
maximum VMD of 80 microns. The smallest drop diameters are at the highest gas
pressure and the lowest liquid pressure.

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1.23 DROP SIZE DISTRIBUTION REPORT

Notes:

This type of plot was generated using drop size test results where the size distribution
and various types of mean diameters are reported.

1.24 Accessing Drop Size Data

Notes:
How do I access drop size data for a customer request? Through JetMaster®.

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1.25 Summary

Notes:

In summary, average drop diameter is a very useful measure to quantify spray nozzle
performance to meet specific application needs. In many applications, smaller drop size,
which has a larger surface to volume ratio, enhances performance due to increased
surface area. However, for many applications, constraints exist. Too high a proportion of
fine drop size can result in problematic drifting. Too large, and the largest drops in the
distribution, DV0.9, can be a problem.

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