Compact Pressure Atomizer Distributor with Inclined Passages
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional pressure atomizers face challenges in achieving wide spray angles while maintaining a small size, which is essential for applications like gas turbine engines, often requiring compromises that limit design choices and performance.
Innovation Solution
A pressure atomizer design featuring a distributor with inclined passages and swirl slots that diverge from the longitudinal axis, allowing for a wide spray angle while maintaining a compact size, and includes a spray tip and air sleeve for enhanced fluid flow and thermal isolation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If the pressure atomizer nozzle is made smaller, then the size constraint is satisfied, but the spray angle becomes narrower
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an inclined passage that angles away from the longitudinal axis, adding a dimensional component to the fluid flow path. This inclined geometry allows the spray to diverge at wider angles while maintaining a compact nozzle body, effectively decoupling the relationship between nozzle size and spray angle that plagues traditional designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The distributor body is segmented into distinct functional zones: an inclined passage for wide-angle spray generation, a spin chamber for swirl induction, and communication bores for fluid transfer. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently, enabling wide spray angles in a small overall package.
2Shape
If the spray angle is increased, then the spray coverage is improved, but the nozzle size increases
Solution Approach 1:
By incorporating an inclined passage that angles away from the longitudinal axis, the design achieves wide spray angles without proportionally increasing the nozzle body dimensions. The inclined geometry provides the necessary spray divergence within a compact footprint.
Solution Approach 2:
The spin chamber is nested within the distributor body, and the inclined passage is integrated into the distributor structure. This nested arrangement allows multiple functional elements to occupy overlapping spatial volumes, achieving wide spray coverage without increasing the overall nozzle envelope.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design achieves spray angles greater than 90° with a flow number exceeding 6.0, and angles greater than 80° or 75° with flow numbers above 4.0 or 3.0, respectively, while maintaining a small distributor diameter, outperforming traditional designs in terms of size and efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
a downstream end defining a spin chamber for swirling a liquid flowing therethrough
Implementation Method 2
The inclined passage can be ramped with respect to the outboard peripheral surface with a deeper portion thereof proximate the upstream end and a shallower portion thereof proximate the downstream end to accelerate fluids flowing therethrough
Data Source
AI summary
A distributor for a pressure atomizer includes a distributor body having an upstream end defining an internal liquid circuit, a downstream end defining a spin chamber for swirling a liquid flowing therethrough, and an outboard peripheral surface extending from the upstream end to the downstream end. The upstream and downstream ends are spaced apart along a longitudinal axis. An inclined passage is defined in the outboard peripheral surface in fluid communication with the internal liquid circuit and with the spin chamber for producing a relatively wide spray angle for a given distributor body size. The inclined passage is angled to diverge from the longitudinal axis of the distributor body in a direction toward the downstream end.