Real-time measurement of droplet size and its distribution of an air-induced air-assisted electrostatic nozzle

• Published in: Journal of electrostatics 2022-01, Vol.115, p.103665, Article 103665
• Main Authors: Patel, Manoj Kumar, Khanchi, Ankit, Chauhan, Aarti, Kumar, Anup, Akkireddi, Siva Rama Krishna, Jangra, Anil, Kanawade, Rajesh, Manivannan, Nadarajah, Mitchell, Geoffrey Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aerodynamics; Charged droplet trajectory; Electro-hydrodynamics; Mie theory; Particulate matter (PM); Rayleigh scattering
• ISSN: 0304-3886; 1873-5738
• DOI: 10.1016/j.elstat.2021.103665

In this paper, a critical assessment has been carried out to understand the droplet size and its distribution with the variation of various parameters such as applied high voltage, applied air pressure, liquid flow rate, position and orientation of the nozzle. The mean droplet size for an electrostatic nozzle is 15.54 μm which is minimum amongst all four nozzle droplet sizes 24.17, 138.25 and 259.43 μm for a pressure swirl nozzle, a motorized and a handheld agricultural nozzle respectively. Statistical analysis shows that an electrostatic nozzle has the mean of 15.53 μm, standard deviation of 0.1538 and variance of 0.02368. •The measurement of the effect of applied high voltage on the droplet size has been carried out.•Droplet size of liquid spray increases as the spray travels towards the target.•Droplet size is lesser at the outer periphery in comparison to center of the spray envelop.•CMR level of 9.786 mC/kg has been achieved at an applied voltage of 2.0 kV and liquid flow rate of 120 ml/min.