Direct modeling of the simultaneous flow of compressible atomizing gas jets and a weakly compressible liquid intermetallic stream during gas atomization

The authors have developed a new atomization model enabling direct numerical simulation of the simultaneous flow of compressible atomizing gas jets and a weakly compressible liquid metal stream. It has been used to simulate the atomization of a Ni-50wt.%Al melt stream by argon gas jets in a closed-coupled atomizer. The 2D simulation results show that the presence of the liquid intermetallic stream significantly influences the field variables, particularly the aspiration pressure. At the gas plenum pressure used, the gas nozzles are choked and hence the gas flow upstream of the tip of the liquid delivery tube is not influenced by the presence of the liquid intermetallic stream, whereas the downstream gas flow is affected. Significant differences between model predictions assuming either incompressible or compressible gas are reported. Besides the atomization of liquid intermetallic stream by argon gas, this unified atomization model is available for use to simulate a variety of different twin-fluid atomization processes.