Atomizing, spraying and aerosols

The omnipresence of dispersed phases (liquids in the case of droplets, solids in the case of particles) in nature and industry, whose formation process is commonly referred to as atomization or spraying, is beyond dispute. Describing the physical processes and mechanisms involved in the transition from a continuous liquid phase to a dispersed phase is a complex task. While droplet characteristics (size and velocity) can be precisely deduced from theory for a few textbook cases of atomization, only qualitative aspects and trends can be obtained in most cases. We shall see in this article that, nonetheless, numerous simulations are being carried out to characterize dispersed phases, aided, it is true, by the emergence of modern computers. Here, we'll look at measurement techniques specific to atomization, as well as detailed droplet size distributions obtained empirically to overcome the difficulty of obtaining theoretical predictions.