Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Experimental and numerical modeling of the gas atomization nozzle for gas ow
behavior
Ozer Aydin , Rahmi Unal
Dumlupinar University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kutahya, Turkey
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 3 December 2009
Received in revised form 21 September
2010
Accepted 28 October 2010
Available online 3 November 2010
Keywords:
Gas atomization
CFD
Flow separation
Melt tip pressure
a b s t r a c t
Gas atomization is a widely used process for manufacturing of ne metal- and alloy-powder. To ensure a
stable process with high yields of metal powder, the negative pressure at the melt delivery tube tip base
and no ow separation conditions are necessary for a good atomization process. An important feature of
these jets is that ow separation may occur over the outer surface of the liquid delivery tube for some
conditions. Flow separation cause solidication and accumulation of metal, leading to a shape alteration
of the liquid delivery tube in gas atomization process. Using computational uid dynamics (CFD) software, a parametric study was conducted to determine the effects of atomizing gas pressure on the melt
delivery tube tip base pressure and ow separation. Atomization gas pressures of 1.0, 1.3, 1.7, 2.2, and
2.7 MPa were used in the CFD model to initialize the pressure in gas inlet. CFD simulations were performed and the modeling results were compared with experimental data. These results showed that
the CFD modeling can be used for the estimation of the melt tip base pressure of the nozzle. It is found
that the ow separation formation is strongly dependent on the atomizing gas pressure.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Atomization relies on a melt and disintegration of that melt into
droplets that freeze into particles. The use of air, nitrogen, helium, or
argon as a gas for breaking up a molten stream is termed gas atomization. The idea is to transfer kinetic energy from a high velocity jetgas expanded through a nozzle, to a stream of liquid metal, resulting
in fragmentation and break up into metal droplets. Gas atomization
of liquid metal using close-coupled nozzle system is used to produce
metal powders with characteristics that cannot be achieved with
other powder production methods. It is often used to fabricate ne,
highly spherical powders typically used in applications requiring
dense packing and good ow characteristics. Alloy powders that
cannot be made with chemical techniques are readily made using
gas atomization. In addition, the rapid cooling rates inherent in the
process show potential to produce amorphous powders with unique
properties. These capabilities ensure that gas atomization will continue to be an important process in powder metallurgy. The atomization nozzle assemblies can be of two types: free-fall, or close
coupled. In free-fall atomizers, the stream of molten metal is allowed
to fall unrestricted until it interacts with the gas jets. In close-coupled atomizers, the stream of molten metal is delivered by a ceramic
conduit (named liquid-delivery-tube) to the interaction zone with
the gas jets [1]. Close-coupled gas atomization is a technique widely
used for the production of ne metal powders by the disruption of a
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 274 2652031; fax: +90 274 2652066.
E-mail address: ozaydin@dumlupinar.edu.tr (O. Aydin).
0045-7930/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compuid.2010.10.013
38
Nomenclature
c
E
~
F
H
M
Mw
p
pop
r
R
~
q
S
Sm
speed of sound
total energy
external body forces
enthalpy
mach number
molecular weight
static pressure
operating pressure
radial coordinate
universal gas constant
heat ux vector
effective temperature
mass added to the continuous phase from the dispersed
second phase
@q @
@
qv r
qv x qv r
Sm
@r
@t @x
r
@
1 @
1 @
qv x
r qv x v x
rqv r v x
@t
r @x
r @r
@p 1 @
@v x 2
1
rl 2
v
r ~
@x r @x
r
@x 3
@
@v x @v r
rl
Fx
@r
@r
@x
static temperature
axial gas velocity
radial gas velocity
swirl velocity
axial coordinate
vx
vr
vz
x
Greek symbols
q
gas density
q~
g
gravitational body force
s
stress tensor
l
molecular viscosity
c
ratio of specic heats
and
@
1 @
1 @
qv r
r qv x v r
rqv r v r
@t
r @x
r @r
@p 1 @
@v r @v x
1 @
@v r 2
rl
rl 2
v
r ~
@r r @x
r @r
3
@x
@r
@r
2l
vr
r2
2l
v2
v q z Fr
r ~
3 r
r
where
r~
v
@v x @v v r
@x
@r
r
pop p
R
T
Mw
where pop is the operating pressure dened in the operating conditions panel, p is the local static pressure relative to the operating
pressure, R is the universal gas constant, and Mw is the molecular
weight. The temperature, T, will be computed from the energy
equation.
Energy conservation equations can be written as:
@E
qr H ~
v rs ~
v r ~q
@t
M v =c
p
cRT
39
Fig. 1. Schematics of the annular type nozzle and set-up for measuring the melt
delivery tube tip pressure.
l l0
T
T0
3=2
T0 S
T S
Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the computational eld showing the geometry of the boundaries.
40
1.10e+5
Mesh 1
Mesh 2
Mesh 3
1.09e+5
Pressure (Pa)
1.08e+5
1.07e+5
1.06e+5
1.05e+5
1.04e+5
1.03e+5
1.02e+5
Atmospheric Pres.
1.01e+5
1.00e+5
0
10
11
1.10e+5
Mesh 1
Mesh 2
Mesh 3
1.09e+5
Pressure (Pa)
1.08e+5
1.07e+5
1.06e+5
1.05e+5
Fig. 5. The position of the pressure lines at the melt tip base of the nozzle for the
determination of melt tip base pressure by CFD.
1.04e+5
1.03e+5
1.02e+5
Atmospheric Pres.
Table 1
Nitrogen properties.
1.01e+5
1.00e+5
0
10
11
Pressure (Pa)
1.11e+5
1.10e+5
1.09e+5
1.08e+5
1.07e+5
1.06e+5
1.05e+5
1.04e+5
1.03e+5
1.02e+5
1.01e+5
1.00e+5
C (J/kg K)
Thermal conductivity (W/m K)
Viscosity (kg/ms)
Molecular weight (kg/kg mol)
1040.67
0.0242
Sutherland law
28.0134
Mesh 1
Mesh 2
Mesh 3
Atmospheric Pres.
10
11
Fig. 6. Comparison of the melt tip base pressure for experimental and CFD solution.
ery tube as shown in Fig. 5. These lines were 1.5 mm long from the
center line of the delivery tube along the base surface. There were
ten measuring points on the each line. The average of the all pressure data obtained from the measuring points is used as the delivery tube tip pressure. The melt delivery tube inner diameter was
3 mm in the experiments. In order to obtain the pressure values
in the simulation the line lengths were selected 1.5 mm in y axis
direction. Three pressure lines shifted 1 mm from each other were
used to improve the accuracy of the obtained pressure values from
the simulation. The average of predicted pressure values of all
points was called as melt tip pressure and was compared with
experimental value.
CFD simulations were performed using a pressure based steadystate segregated implicit solver. Flow turbulence was simulated
using the realizable ke model with enhanced wall treatment,
the latter being one of the available tools in FLUENT to model
the near-wall region. Default values for the model constants were
applied. Some researchers have used ke model to stimulate the
nozzle ow behavior by CFD. Those studies can give some information about the designed nozzle for the improvements of the designs. By treating the turbulent ow with the ke model, Xu
et al. numerically investigated the effects of the protrusion of the
liquid delivery tube on the compressible gas ow [14]. The uid
is nitrogen, modeled as compressible gas with ideal gas law for
density and the gas constants given in Table 1. According to NIST
41
duced during each iteration. In a simple form, the new value of the
variable / within a cell depends upon the old value, / old, the computed change in /, D/, and the under-relaxation factor, a, as follows:
/ /old a D/
database [15], the compressibility factor for Nitrogen at 11 atmospheric pressure and temperature of 300 K is 0.998, in that case
it is reasonably accurate to use the ideal gas law in this simulation.
The boundary conditions are illustrated in Fig. 1. Atomization gas
pressures of 10, 13, 17, 22, and 27 bars were used in the CFD model
to initialize the pressure in gas inlet. The gas inlet temperature was
taken as 300 K. The gas outlet was dened as pressure outlet and
pressure was dened as atmospheric pressure. The temperatures
of all the walls were taken 300 K.
Because of the nonlinearity of the equation set being solved by
FLUENT, it is necessary to control the change of /. This is typically
achieved by under-relaxation, which reduces the change of / pro-
10
Fig. 9. The x component of the wall shear stress on the outer surface of nozzle for different atomization pressures.
42
Fig. 11. Velocity vectors (m/s) show the recirculation zone at the melt tip base of
the nozzle.
Fig. 10. Pressure contours (Pa) occur on the outer surface of nozzle for different
atomization pressures. (a) 1.0 MPa, (b) 1.3 MPa, (c) 1.7 MPa, (d) 2.2 MPa, (e) 2.7 MPa.
melt delivery tube base pressure was given in Fig. 6. The trends
of the melt tip base pressure graphs are the same for the theoretical CFD solution and experimental data. The difference between
them was nearly same for all the nozzle gas pressures. Experimental values are only 1115% smaller than the theoretical CFD values.
Espina and Piomelli found in their study that the numerical calculations generally miss the prediction of the aspiration pressure by
1020% (a result consistent with similar numerical data obtained
from supersonic base ow simulations) [2]. Aspiration pressure
values were observed at the melt tip base pressure in the experimental measurements. Pressure measurement at the tip of the
melt delivery tube during the atomization process is not possible.
For that reason, before atomizing each melt, the gas only aspiration
prole of the atomizer nozzle was measured with a digital pressure
transducer to determine the pressure of melt delivery tube tip [17].
Aspiration pressure value was observed at the simulation by CFD.
All the simulation melt tip base pressure values are greater than
the experimental pressures. For that reason, aspiration pressure
values are not observed in the simulations. However, the simulations capture accurately the trends observed in the experimental
data better than previous studies by Espina and Piomelli, as shown
in Fig. 6. This result showed that the CFD modeling can be used for
the estimation of the melt tip base pressure of the nozzle.
The theoretical gas velocity of the nozzle is given in Fig. 7. The
gas velocity has a maximum value of 663 m/s at 2.7 MPa gas pressure and minimum value of 631 m/s at 1.0 MPa gas pressure. This
shows that the gas velocity could not be increased in the order of
pressure increase. For that reason, for an efcient gas atomization
process the geometry can give the maximum gas velocity for the
same mass ow rate of the gas. Hence, efciency of a gas atomization nozzle greatly depends on the geometry of the nozzle.
An important feature of these jets is that ow separation may
occur over the outer surface of the liquid delivery tube for some
conditions (see Fig. 8). The occurrence of separation, which is a
function of atomization pressure and liquid delivery tube extension, has been suggested to cause liquid metal to be drawn from
the end face of the liquid delivery tube into its outer surface, where
it is exposed to the very cold expanding gas of the annular wall jet.
The extreme temperature difference between the metal and the
gas promotes the solidication and accumulation of metal, leading
to a shape alteration of the liquid delivery tube. Typically, this sequence of events induces a freeze off that ends the atomization
process prematurely. Therefore, this separation is detrimental to
the process of gas-metal atomization and should be avoided at
all costs.
As shown in Fig. 9, the large, adverse pressure gradient induced
by the shock causes the boundary layer to separate. Flow reversal
is indicated here by negative values of the x component of the wall
shear stress. Pressure contours occured at the outer surface of noz-
43
Fig. 12. The ow separation formation at the atomization of tin: (a) before the atomization, (b) ow separation during the atomization at 2.2 MPa gas pressure, (c) no ow
separation during the atomization at 1.3 MPa gas pressure.
zle are seen for the different atomization pressures in Fig. 10. It is
seen clearly that ow separation is more efcient with the pressure
increase. At the 1.0 MPa gas pressure, ow separation is not observed. If the pressure is increased, ow separation is determined
more efciently beyond the 1.7 MPa pressure. The liquid metal is
drawn into the recirculation zone by the aspiration. Where, lateral
spreading occurs at the tip of the melt delivery tube. In the recirculation zone downstream of the melt tip, the pressure is usually
higher at the centerline. This will force the metal outwards into
the part of the gas stream where it is most energetic (Fig. 11). Flow
separation was observed experimentally as shown in Fig. 12. Before the atomization started the melt tip base is shown in
Fig. 12a, and the ow separation was accomplished during the
atomization of tin as shown in Fig. 12b. On the other hand, no ow
separation was observed during the atomization of tin at 1.3 MPa
as shown in Fig. 12c. The freeze off was not observed during the
atomization of tin due to the sufcient overheating of the melt.
4. Conclusions
Using computational uid dynamics (CFD) software, a parametric study was conducted to determine the effects of atomizing gas
pressure on the melt delivery tube base pressure and ow separation. The melt delivery tube base pressure CFD simulations capture
accurately the trends observed in the experimental data. This result showed that the CFD modeling can be used for the estimation
of the melt delivery tube base pressure of the nozzle.
It is also found that the geometry is very important for an efcient nozzle in order to get the highest velocity at the nozzle exit.
The gas velocity has a maximum value of 663 m/s at 2.7 MPa gas
pressure and minimum value of 631 m/s at 1.0 MPa gas pressure.
This shows that the gas velocity could not be increased in the order
of pressure increase. For that reason, for an efcient gas atomization process the geometry could give the maximum gas velocity
for the same mass ow rate of the gas.
The occurrence of ow separation is affected by atomization
pressure and liquid delivery tube extension parameters. This ow
separation was observed experimentally during the atomization
of tin. For a good nozzle design the ow separation could be
avoided in order to prevent the melt freeze off. It is found that
the ow separation is strongly dependent on the atomizing gas
pressure. As a result of this study, it is concluded that CFD simula-
tions can be used as a good tool for predicting atomization efciency and design improvement.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to gratefully acknowledge support of the
TUBITAK The Scientic and Technological Research Council of
Turkey through Grant No. 107M189.
References
[1] Espina PI, Piomelli U. Numerical simulation of the gas ow in gas-metal
atomizers. In: Proceedings of FEDSM98, 1998 ASME uids engineering,
division summer meeting, Washington, DC, USA; June 2125, 1998.
[2] Mullis AM, Adkins NJ, Huang Z, Cochrane RF. Quantitative high frame rate
analysis of the spray cone geometry during close-coupled gas atomization. In:
Third international conference on spray deposition and melt atomization
SDMA2006, Bremen, Germany; 46th September 2006.
[3] Unal R. Investigation of the metal powder production efciency of a new
convergent-divergent nozzle in close-coupled gas atomization. Powder Metall
2007;50:3026.
[4] Lang M, Rist U, Wagner S. Investigations on controlled transition development
in a laminar separation bubble by means of LDA and PIV. Exp Fluids
2004;36:4352.
[5] Tinoco J, Widell B, Fredriksson H, Fuchs L. Modeling the in-ight events during
metal spray forming. Mater Sci Eng A 2004;365:30210.
[6] Ting J, Anderson IE. A computational uid dynamics (CFD) investigation of the
wake closure phenomenon. Mater Sci Eng A 2004;379:26476.
[7] Zeoli N, Gu S, Kamnis S. Numerical modelling of metal droplet cooling and
solidication. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 2008;51:412131.
[8] Zeoli N, Gu S. Numerical modelling of droplet break-up for gas atomization.
Comput Mater Sci 2006;38:28292.
[9] Tong M, Browne DJ. Direct numerical simulation of meltgas hydrodynamic
interactions during the early stage of atomization of liquid intermetallic. J
Mater Process Technol 2008;202:41927.
[10] Tong M, Browne DJ. Modelling compressible gas ow near the nozzle of a gas
atomiser using a new unied model. Comput Fluids 2009;38:118390.
[11] FLUENT 6.1 Users Guide, Fluent Inc., Centerra Resource Park, 10 Cavendish
Court, Lebanon, NH 03766, USA; 2003.
[12] Fluent Inc., GAMBIT Users Guide, Fluent Inc., Lebanon; 2002.
[13] White FM. Fluid mechanics. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill Book Co; 1988.
[14] Xu Q, Cheng D, Trapaga G, Yang N, Lavernia EJ. Numerical analysis of uid
dynamics of an atomization conguration. J Mater Res 2002;17:15666.
[15] NIST reference uid thermodynamic and transport properties database
(REFPROP) version 7.0, National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Boulder, CO 80305-3328, USA.
[16] Unal R. The inuence of the pressure formation at the tip of the melt delivery
tube on tin powder size and gas/melt ratio in gas atomization method. J Mater
Process Technol 2006;180:2915.
[17] Unal R. Improvements to close coupled gas atomization nozzle for ne powder
production. Powder Metall 2007;50(1):6671.