Spray patterns of multi-element swirl coaxial injector of interacting spray under different injection conditions

Multi-element injectors have been used in liquid rocket engines to obtain high thrust, and the gas-centered swirl coaxial injector is a representative injection system because it provides high mixing performance. Investigations of the spray characteristics of injection systems have focused on the characteristics of single-element injectors, including the spray angle, breakup, and atomization mechanism of the liquid sheet formation. However, the spray characteristics of multi-element injectors need to be studied because of their usage in real rocket engine systems. In this paper, spray patterns and interacting spray under different injection conditions are analyzed using the backlight imaging technique, and the dominant flow fields are observed using the dynamic mode decomposition method. The spray angle in the case of the gaseous nitrogen with a high Reynolds number is calculated to be lower than the case with a low Reynolds number. From the averaged images, it is found that there are two dominant flow fields: one is located in the vicinity of the injector head and the other is in the interacting spray zone, which is related to a secondary breakup via an adjacent injector. As a result of the dynamic mode decomposition analysis, however, the spray zone near the injector is confirmed to be a more dominant flow field than the interacting spray zone.