Analytical and Experimental Investigation of Entrainment in Capillary Pumped Wicking Structures

Abstract

Analytical and experimental investigations were conducted to identify and better understand the parameters that govern the entrainment of liquid droplets in high-velocity gas streams flowing over capillary wicking structures. Using a flow visualization technique, two modes of entrainment were identified and described for high-velocity gas flows over an intermittently interrupted liquid surface. These two modes, roll-wave entrainment and stripping entrainment, were found to correspond to the lower and upper critical gas velocities, respectively. Measurements of the critical gas velocities and the droplet size distribution (Sauter mean diameter) of the entrained sprays were made as a function of the capillary pore size for three different mesh sizes and were compared with several analytical models developed in previous investigations. The flow visualization results indicate that the upper critical velocity is insensitive to variations in the capillary pumping rate provided the capillary pores are properly primed. The experimental results also indicate that the critical velocity for a given mesh is strongly influenced by the mesh dimensions, but that the previously developed criteria for estimating the critical velocity results in an underestimation of the upper critical velocity for all but very small pore sizes. Finally, to resolve this problem a new analytical model for predicting the critical velocity was developed and shown to be accurate for a wide range of capillary pore sizes.