Characteristics of liquid sheets formed by two impinging jets

An experimental investigation of liquid sheets formed by the impingement of two capillary liquid jets is conducted. The breakup mechanism of the sheet is categorized into two main regimes and five subregimes based on the experimental observations. Two types of Reynolds numbers (jet Reynolds number and sheet Reynolds number) are introduced to correlate with and map the reported breakup regimes. Breakup length and width are introduced, and their analytical models are derived. Both the analytical and experimental results show that the breakup length and width are linearly proportional to the Weber number of individual jets in the case of closed-rim sheets. The slopes of the two linear relations are dependent on the impinging angle. The distribution of fluid velocity in the sheet is examined and found to be in disagreement with the assumption of early models, which claims uniform velocity across the sheet. The nonuniform distribution of fluid velocity in the sheet causes a discrepancy between analytically predicted sheet thickness and the experimental results reported in early works.