Viscoelastic breakup in a high velocity airstream

Viscoelastic fluids were injected into a high velocity airstream (200 m/s) to investigate how the addition of small polymer quantities to fluids significantly increase the resultant disseminated drop size. For each liquid tested several hundred resultant drops were sampled and measured using an automated image analyzer. The resultant mass median diameter (MMD) for a viscoelastic fluid was an order of magnitude larger than a comparable viscous Newtonian fluid. A relaxation time measured from a die swell experiment correlates the dissemination results suggesting, an elongational rather than shear breakup mechanism.